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Book X% 



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EDITED BY 

AMBROSE WHITE VERNON 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 
THE SON OF GOD 

AN INTERPRETATION FOR 
THE MODERN MAN 



BY 



GEORGE WILLIAM KNOX 

PROFESSOR IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 



' That ye may be the sons of your Father which is in heaven." 




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BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1909 



Ml 



COPYRIGHT, I909, BY GEORGE WILLIAM KNOX 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published October iqoq 



SCLAVS 



TO MY DEAR CHILDREN 



A word of acknowledgment is due to my friend and 
fellow worker, Professor James Everett Frame, for his 
patient reading of the MS. and for his keen criticisms and 
valuable suggestions. 

G. W. K. 

Union Theological Seminary. 
August ii, 1909. 



CONTENTS 

I. Religion and the Modern Man i 

II. The Nature and Present State of 

Theology 18 

III. Is Christian Experience Uniform? 34 

IV. Jesus the Messiah 52 
V. The Son of God 90 



INTRODUCTION 

It is not too much to say that the pres- 
ent generation stands before a crisis in the 
history of the Christian religion. We look 
out upon a different world from that of our 
fathers; our sacred books have forfeited the 
particular authority which they had pos- 
sessed for centuries; human life is seen less 
clearly against an eternal background, now 
that war and disease have become checked. 
It is the purpose of this series of books to 
reexamine the Christian Scriptures and the 
Christian faith in the light of these facts. 

We look out, we say, upon a different 
world from that of our fathers. It has been 
marvelous to see how the insight and patient 
toil of Darwin have revolutionized the ap- 
prehension of the universe. No first-rate 
man of science can to-day be found who be- 

xi 



INTRODUCTION 

lieves in the immutability of species. When 
we remember that fifty years ago no one 
doubted it, the significance of the labor of 
Charles Darwin, A. R. Wallace, and their 
followers is clear. While men may differ 
among themselves regarding the means by 
which the origin of species is brought about, 
some emphasizing more and some empha- 
sizing less what Darwin called " Natural 
Selection," his main contention that species 
have arisen by evolution from earlier species 
rather than by a special creative act of God 
may be said to be universally accepted. As 
the years have gone on, the religious import 
of this discovery has become apparent. 

In the first place, with the growth of the 
agnostic temper we have realized how many 
men had come to a belief on God through 
the marvels of the natural world. Seventy- 
five years before Darwin, Kant had shown, 
it is true, the insufficiency of the approach 
to God through arguments founded on the 

xii 



INTRODUCTION 

natural world and the sufficiency of the ap- 
proach to Him through the necessary pos- 
tulates of morality, but Kant's work was 
generally unheeded. Darwin himself had 
come to his belief on God largely through 
the natural theology of Paley. When, there- 
fore, he discovered that the marvels of the 
natural world were, at least in the over- 
whelming majority of cases, marvels of 
slow development rather than of sudden 
creation, the chief foundations of his own 
faith were shattered, and he was obliged 
reluctantly to write himself down as an 
agnostic. His experience has proved typical. 
Men who relied on the direct interven- 
tion of God in the creation of the natural 
world to obtain belief on Him have for- 
feited that belief. The passing years have 
revealed how large that number has been. 
But apart from this fact, which seems so 
discreditable to the moral sense of man, 
the acceptance of the doctrine of evolution 

xiii 



INTRODUCTION 

by all intelligent and educated men has di- 
minished the possibility of founding belief 
upon miracle or supernatural intervention 
of any kind. It has shifted the burden of 
proof. Before the time of Darwin, men 
could say of a scriptural miracle: "This has 
been believed by all our fathers. It is only 
one more instance of the interposition of 
God, which we see in the countless species 
of the natural world. The rational course 
is to believe it. If we are not to believe it, 
you must disprove it first." Now men are 
forced to give absolutely adequate reasons 
for the acceptance of the Biblical miracles, 
rather than their rejection. These miracles 
are now out of line with the world in which 
we live rather than in line with it. The simple 
and amazing fact is that no religion can be 
accepted to-day because of the supernatural 
interventions by which it is supported, 
whereas fifty years ago no religion would 
have been deemed worthy of acceptance 

xiv 



INTRODUCTION 

except upon such supernatural grounds. 
This fact is borne in mind by all the con- 
tributors to this series of volumes. 

But the aspect of the world has changed 
no more than our apprehension of the Scrip- 
tures. Driven by the shifting of the burden 
of proof to a closer examination of the Bib- 
lical documents, honest and conscientious 
scholars of the Old Testament have dis- 
covered that in many important cases the 
documents are hundreds of years removed 
from the events which they describe; they 
have found that the Mosaic law, so far from 
being created on the mount as the begin- 
ning of a new moral species, is the product 
of centuries of religious life and longing and 
disappointment; they have found in the 
diverse books of the Bible irreconcilable 
discrepancies of statement and wide diver- 
gence of doctrine; they have come upon 
men whose greatness the former theories 
of inspiration had obscured, and they have 

xv 



INTRODUCTION 

found their greatness to consist not in pecul- 
iar fitness for the performance of miraculous 
deeds in the natural world, but in excep- 
tional power for overcoming the world of 
the spirit by faith in God and by a growing 
reverence and hope for men. Men who 
have been conspicuous in this new discov- 
ery of the Old Testament are the contribu- 
tors to this series. 

The same honest examination which has 
revolutionized our conception of the Old 
Testament has been applied to the New 
Testament. It has also been found to be a 
human product, to contain errors of fact, to 
be composed of books of varying historical 
value, — from the Gospel of Mark and the 
Epistles of Paul on the one hand to the re- 
flective Gospel of John and the spurious 
Second Epistle of Peter on the other. While 
New Testament scholarship has empha- 
sized the spiritual supremacy of Jesus Christ 
and established his unique power over both 

xvi 



INTRODUCTION 

diseased and undiseased humanity, it has 
left his direct intervention in the laws of 
the natural world at least an open question. 
The contributors to this series appreciate 
the profound importance of these facts. 

If we add to the changed conceptions of 
the World and the Bible, a new delight in 
the beauty and in the mastering of nature, 
a new interest and enthusiasm for the de- 
velopment of the society of this present age, 
and a growing disregard of any world to 
come, I think that we are justified in saying 
that we live in a crisis for religious faith. 

This series of books is written for the 
sake of those men who are sensitive to the 
prevailing atmosphere of their time, and who 
are at the same time desirous of conserving 
the great moral and religious values that 
have been wrought out by the Christian 
centuries, and of partaking of that strength 
and peace which are the peculiar effects of 
Christian faith. Among those who share 

xvii 



INTRODUCTION 

these desires are many who have not the 
leisure to master long philosophical or Bib- 
lical treatises, but who are anxious to ob- 
tain in a small compass the assured results 
of modern scholarship on the matters most 
immediately connected with religious faith. 
It is a significant sign of the times that men 
of the highest attainment in scholarship have 
been found willing and eager to perform 
this service. For out of the stress of the 
last years, it is becoming evident that the 
Christian world is in possession of "things 
which cannot be shaken." The ideal of ser- 
vice is more firmly established than ever 
in the world as the supreme ideal of the 
race. A sense of eternal value to justify 
and establish that ideal has become abso- 
lutely essential to the highest human life. 
Jesus Christ as the highest and the supreme 
personality of history, the founder of the 
ideal of service and the mediator of the 
faith and love which are alone adequate 
xviii 



INTRODUCTION 

to its maintenance and its realization, has 
become better apprehended and more uni- 
versally revered than ever before as the 
only — but the adequate — guide of men 
into faith upon God and communion with 
Him. 

These books are written therefore with 
the utmost hospitality for all modern nat- 
ural and psychological and Biblical science, 
with the desire of making clear to the aver- 
age intelligent and religious man that this 
great religious crisis maybe passed through 
as safely and as bravely as others have been, 
that nature is not to obtain the mastery over 
the spirits of men, and that a man, incred- 
ulous of miracle, may still through Jesus 
Christ be permitted to apprehend, to per- 
form, and to glory in the will of God. 

The editor does not, of course, subscribe 
to all the opinions advanced by the con- 
tributors to this series. He has sought to 
enlist men of high scholarship, of earnest 

xix 



INTRODUCTION 

religious feeling, and of openness of mind 
in this endeavor to set forth the leading ideas 
and convictions of modern liberal scholar- 
ship. Such men are in agreement upon 
certain large underlying ideas, but differ 
from one another on many an important 
point. This is only to say that religious 
problems are living problems. 

Ambrose White Vernon. 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 



RELIGION AND THE MODERN MAN 

Every age determines its gospel, even 
though it be the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
At least the emphasis is changed in differ- 
ent times and by different individuals, so 
that though they profess the same creed 
and follow the same ritual and are loyal to 
the same organization, the adage holds 
that the same thing done by different per- 
sons is not the same thing. However 
stoutly we affirm the gospel to be un- 
changing, it is not precisely " the same 
old story" which is repeated generation 
after generation. Man himself does not 
remain unmodified by the changing envi- 
ronments in which he lives, and the ob- 

i 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

jects on which he looks tell a different 
tale with his increasing knowledge, even 
though the object be the faith delivered 
once for all to the saints. Certain facts, it 
is true, remain constant, and within this 
range religion continues the same; but for 
the most part the evolutions and revolu- 
tions in economic and social conditions, 
and in knowledge, affect essentially all the 
contents of the mind, and, not the least, 
religion. 

Religion is simply an aspect of humanity; 
for men are religious as they are intellectual 
and aesthetic, by nature. Religion is there- 
fore truly one, as truly as is knowledge, as 
truly as is humanity; but it is also as diversi- 
fied as is knowledge, as diversified as are the 
individuals who compose mankind. Doubt- 
less in religion, under our Protestant training, 
we are accustomed to put the emphasis upon 
our individuality, but the emphasis is at least 
debatable. For most people are religious by 

2 



RELIGION AND THE MODERN MAN 

custom and surroundings, accepting their 
creed as they accept their politics. They are 
of the religion of their parents as they are of 
their nationality, and they go with the fam- 
ily, or with their social group, to keep holy 
day as they go with them to keep holiday. 
They give to the church devotion as they 
give loyalty to the government, and will 
make sacrifices in time of need for either. 
This is the form of religion which scholars 
call " natural religion," because of its unre- 
flecting and instinctive character. Should 
doubts arise, they are readily dismissed or 
answered by traditional arguments to which 
the mind is open. Emotions of reverence 
gather around the sacred places and objects, 
and attach themselves to the hymns and 
prayers, and a feeling arises that he who is 
worshiped is present. The emotions give re- 
ality to the traditional forms and make them 
portions of the living experience. 

Changes in one's surroundings, or occu- 

3 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

pation, or circle of friends may produce 
indifference to religion, or hostility as un- 
reflecting as was the loyalty. Such indif- 
ference is more common now than in the 
past, not because men are more skeptical, 
but because changes of residence and of oc- 
cupation are more frequent. Men think that 
they have outgrown forms of faith and 
worship when they have merely changed 
their abode; but a return to the old sur- 
roundings may revive the old emotions, 
and they may be again zealous for the 
church. Similar causes lead some men to 
change their denomination instead of lead- 
ing them to give up religious observances; 
for in this stage of religion, however much 
stress is laid upon peculiar tenets and ritual, 
the similarities in the sects are far greater 
than the differences, the chief similarity 
being in this, that the choice is determined, 
not by the individual, but by the group to 
which he belongs. 

4 



RELIGION AND THE MODERN MAN 

In the Protestant denominations are 
many varieties of opinion as to the doc- 
trines necessary to salvation, the form of 
church organization, the functions of min- 
isters, and the administration of the sacra- 
ments, — all tending to become matters of 
course to those who accept them, and of 
indifference to all others, — but there is a 
common background in which the agree- 
ment is general. This common ground 
may be summed up thus : Religion is belief 
in God and Christ and obedience to God's 
revealed will, and salvation is the future 
and eternal reward of faithfulness. The 
implicit inference, often made explicit, is 
that were there no future life religion 
would cease, as it is essentially a means to 
a happy immortality. If belief in immor- 
tality is weakened devotion languishes, and 
when it is strong religious duties are dili- 
gently performed. The present life is evil 
if it diverts attention from the considera- 

5 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

tion of the future life, so that a large part 
of religious discourse is directed to inciting 
consciousness of the transitory nature of 
this world and the certainty of that which 
is to come. 

This obedience to God's will includes the 
observance of the Sabbath day, attendance 
upon public worship, the maintenance of pri- 
vate devotion, and if possible participation 
in some form of religious work, while the 
conduct must be moral, that is, it must con- 
form to the accepted standards of the com- 
munity. The belief in God and Christ in- 
cludes the deity of Christ, the resurrection 
from the dead, the saving power of his death, 
and the leading articles of the Apostles' 
Creed, and with some such modicum of be- 
lief and practice the churches are content. 

With this "other worldly" notion of re- 
ligion is associated another which is even 
more influential. God is an ever-present 
help in times of trouble and his aid is of the 

6 



RELIGION AND THE MODERN MAN 

most practical character. The great shrine 
at Lourdes has been made rich in the past 
few years by the offerings of those who 
have been miraculously healed, and deliv- 
ered from worldly disaster. In Protestant 
churches prayers are offered for rain, for 
recovery from illness, for safety at sea, and 
for deliverance from death. Religious bio- 
graphy abounds in accounts of God's inter- 
position, and even irreligious men have been 
known to fall impulsively upon their knees 
when danger threatened. A great sect has 
arisen in our day through the belief that re- 
ligious faith can heal diseases and make men 
supreme over matter and all the ills which 
it entails, while in the Christian Church are 
kindred movements insisting that religion 
can be perpetuated only as it proves itself a 
helper in this world. All this is as old as re- 
ligion, since man has sought God's help in 
his daily life from the beginning, from the 
time when he first learned to look up. The 

7 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

progress of science, with its insistence upon 
the certainty of law, has done little to dis- 
pel the belief. At most it has changed the 
form, the modern creed being phrased in 
psychological terms, but the substance re- 
mains much as before. 

Definite and relatively stable types of 
religion are formed which perpetuate them- 
selves in organizations, sects, denomina- 
tions, churches; and within each peculiari- 
ties persist long after the immediate causes 
of their formation have disappeared, but the 
insistence upon them is only in small meas- 
ure the mark of religious differences. To 
be sure, the differing churches have their 
own special types, their distinctive color- 
ings, but their agreements are more impor- 
tant than their differences. It is like the 
loyalty of the Englishman and the Ameri- 
can, — the symbols and traditions are differ- 
ent but the fundamental patriotism is much 
the same. So long as religion is thus chiefly 

8 



RELIGION AND THE MODERN MAN 

the outcome of the group it will be essen- 
tially the same, even though nominally the 
differences are as great as those which sep- 
arate the Roman Catholic from the Baptist. 
Religion, however, has its individualistic 
side, and in Protestantism this has been 
accentuated. Every Christian must have a 
religious experience and thus pass out from 
the stage of natural religion. But this de- 
mand becomes itself traditional and cus- 
tomary, so that most persons can comply 
with it, as it is less and less rigorously de- 
fined. For in all activities there comes a 
time when our personality asserts itself 
and that which before had been matter of 
simple imitation and custom is appropriated 
and made our own, the eyes now per- 
ceiving of themselves. In religion such a 
change may be startling in its suddenness, 
so that the day and hour of conversion are 
remembered, or it may be spread over a 
longer period and be as gradual as the 

9 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

passage of childhood through youth to ma- 
turity; but in either case the emotions are 
aroused and give reality to that which be- 
fore had been merely accepted on authority. 
Sometimes this change rises into ecstasy, 
and into those abnormal states in which 
visions are seen; but through it all the 
customary institutions and ideas are reg- 
nant, for they furnish the material which 
the emotions heighten and transform. 

This emotional experience affords the 
motive power to religion, for the emotions 
of awe and dependence transform mere 
intellectual assent and formal compliance 
with rites into a living faith. It is this ex- 
perience which men desire, for which they 
seek church and temple. Let it be under- 
stood that there is power in any service 
and it will not want for crowded congre- 
gations. There is a sense of transcending 
time and place, — the ordinary self is for- 
gotten and the soul comes into a higher 

10 



RELIGION AND THE MODERN MAN 

unity. The feelings will be differently ex* 
pressed, but all agree that in such mo- 
ments a sense of reality is gained, and that 
in them only is the truth of religion known. 
For periods longer or shorter, religions 
may maintain themselves by creed and rite 
and organization, but without the touch of 
emotion they have but the semblance of 
life and ultimately vanish away. 

Sometimes, nay often, emotion is cher- 
ished solely for itself, being esteemed the 
whole of religion. In heathen cults this 
is found in depraved forms, confounded 
with the emotions aroused by cruelty, and 
more commonly with those of sex and in- 
toxication. Unrestrained license may be 
given to the passions, and drugs and liquors 
used to produce a sacred drunkenness. Or 
bodily movements may accomplish the 
same end. For example, the shouting and 
whirling dervishes and the ignorant multi- 
tudes among ourselves regard exhaustion 

ii 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

and catalepsy as evident tokens of the di- 
vine presence. The mysteries of trance 
and dream and hypnosis are called into 
play to stimulate the feelings of mystery 
and wonder, and to give an impression of 
a power which is inexplicable and super- 
human. The persistence of these forms of 
religion and their recrudescence in our 
day of enlightenment illustrates how strong 
are such emotions and how imperatively 
they demand gratification. 

The church may minister to the emotions 
by solemn music, stately ritual, majestic 
structures, and great congregations. The in- 
dividual is made aware at once of his little- 
ness and of his greatness. He loses himself 
to find himself again in the procession of 
which he is a part or in the cathedral in 
which he worships. Some temperaments 
are keenly sensitive also to the influences of 
nature in its sublimer aspects. Jonathan 
Edwards rejoiced in thunder-storms, thro w- 

12 



RELIGION AND THE MODERN MAN 

ing open wide his window that he might 
feel the presence of God without hindrance, 
and similar experiences have produced some 
of the noblest poetry of the Bible. Nature 
emphasizes the littleness of man and his 
greatness. The individual loses himself in 
the majestic whole only to find himself again 
lifted out of weakness into power, from fini- 
tude into the limitless, up from self to God. 
In its extreme form this emotional experi- 
ence rises into mysticism, wherein all dis- 
tinctions disappear in an immediacy which 
no language can utter nor symbol represent. 
In that knowledge is found absolute peace, — 
the peace which surpasseth utterance, as it 
passeth intellectual comprehension. 

Individuals of a highly developed intel- 
lectual type find their religion by a with- 
drawal from the world of the senses and the 
concentration of the attention upon ideas. 
A world view is formed which reveals the 
truth, in which the ordinary self is seen in 

13 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

its true place and value in relation to all the 
phenomena of the world. The deeper self 
becomes one with the Infinite. The classic 
representation of this form is the Hindu re- 
ligion, wherein the soul by an immediate 
intuition is known as the Absolute, inde- 
scribable and indefinable and to be found 
only in the experience itself. Here an intel- 
lectual process leads to God, as in mysticism 
an emotional experience produces the same 
result. God is the Infinite for both, and 
thereby not to be described, since definition 
is for the limited. He is all the more real, 
in the reality of which finite things are man- 
ifestations. True religion, from this point of 
view, is not the agreement of the intellect 
compelled by logic, but it is an immediate 
and certain knowledge which transforms the 
world. In the Christian church a long line 
of theologians and of saints have approxi- 
mated this point of view. The end of reli- 
gion is a beatific vision of God, and when 



RELIGION AND THE MODERN MAN 

it is attained all else is recognized as sym- 
bolic, even Christ, for in the end he gives 
up his position as mediator and God is all 
and in all. 

Religion is intimately connected with 
ethics, so intimately that it has been defined 
as "morality touched with emotion." Such 
a definition is by no means adequate, and yet 
most regard the two as in some degree one. 
In fact their relationship is something which 
has not yet been made wholly clear. To 
many persons the situation presents itself in 
some such fashion as this: The moral law 
is established by God. The religious man 
obeys it. Were there no God there would 
be no ethics, for He is its source, and were 
there no revelation of this law men would 
cease at once to be moral in this world and 
would give up also religion. The motive of 
morality would be taken awa) 7 , for the sanc- 
tions of the law are life and death eternal. 
Now, a law without sanctions is no law. To 

15 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

other men such a conception destroys ethics 
instead of establishing it, and they deny God 
in the interest of morality. For virtue is not 
a means to some other good, it is not long- 
sightedness, a " genius for calculation," the 
best policy, but it is the supreme good to be 
loved for itself alone. The same result is 
reached, however, from belief in God when 
He is identified, as with Edwards, with dis- 
interested benevolence. Then, in a paradox- 
ical form, men are willing to be damned for 
the glory of God, a paradox which contains 
the profoundest truth. With a prophet like 
Hosea and in the teaching of Jesus the hard 
religion of law becomes the religion of sym- 
pathizing love and of self-sacrificing service. 
The individual loses himself, not in cosmic 
emotion, but in the needs of his fellows. 
Such sympathy is of the very nature of man, 
and in religion it is exalted to the first place. 
Thus do men consecrate themselves to a 
great cause, counting not their own lives 

16 



RELIGION AND THE MODERN MAN 

dear to them and finding a sacramental sanc- 
tity in death for their fellows or for some 
glorious end. Like Moses they may ask to 
be blotted out of God's Book or like Paul to 
be separated eternally from Christ for the 
sake of the brethren after the flesh. Morality 
thus rises to religion, not because it is 
touched with emotion but because the self 
is lost in the whole, and men losing their 
lives for the sake of others find them. 



II 



THE NATURE AND PRESENT STATE 
OF THEOLOGY 

A man's real creed often differs widely 
from the theology to which he gives intel- 
lectual assent. What does he adore and 
trust? The answer will be his true con- 
fession of faith. For, in religion, adora- 
tion combines with trust and results in 
activities. This distinguishes faith from 
fancy, for the latter does not necessarily 
eventuate in conduct; it may please us 
irrespective of the reality of its object. 
But disproof of the existence of God de- 
stroys religion, as man depends only upon 
that which is. When theology is some- 
thing more than the repetition of traditional 
formulae and the logical arrangement of 
material, it must be in earnest, for it deals 

18 



THE PRESENT STATE OF THEOLOGY 

with that which is deepest and of the most 
pressing importance, — with truth, and that 
truth which affects the life. 

Religion precedes it, as facts precede 
science. First is revelation, and then the- 
ology which rests upon it. The prophet — 
Moses, Isaiah, Paul — sees the vision which 
stirs his soul and calls forth religious ac- 
tivities. The message follows : an attempt 
in words to set forth that which eye hath 
not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind con- 
ceived, but is revealed to the spirit by the 
Spirit. Disciples of the prophet, one de- 
gree removed, interpret his words and 
deeds and symbols as they are able. After 
them come the scribes, who apply the 
rules of grammar and unfold the treasures 
of philology, and finally the system-makers, 
who combine the result of exegesis with 
the stores of philosophy and out of the 
whole construct with infinite labor a great 
world scheme. This, then, shall dominate 

19 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

the whole, and the original message be re- 
interpreted in its light. When the dynamic 
power of the religious revelation is great 
it may take on many forms, as it passes 
from continent to continent and from cen- 
tury to century, until it forms a vast em- 
pire of the spirit, with widely differing 
races and civilizations influenced by it and 
influencing it in turn. In succeeding ages 
new movements arise, and there are strifes, 
and internal wars, and wide departures 
from the original revelation, while still 
perhaps a common type of religion con- 
tinues, or perhaps only a common name. 

Christianity takes up into itself the Old 
Testament, and it rests upon the apostles 
and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief 
corner-stone. He is its transforming fact, 
but already within the limits of the New 
Testament there are differences of inter- 
pretation. Soon the genius of the Greeks 
reinterpreted the facts and arranged them 

20 



THE PRESENT STATE OF THEOLOGY 

according to the categories of their phi- 
losophy and sought solutions to problems 
which had never suggested themselves to 
Hebrew minds, until one is forced to ask 
whether the result is Greek philosophy 
colored by the Hebrew affluent or whether 
the Bible contributes the main stream, 
though now it flows through Greek scen- 
ery. 

The formulation of experience reacts 
upon experience, extending it, making ef- 
fectual the control of the activities and 
forming new combinations. Ideas, it is 
true, gain their substance from that which 
the senses give, but once formed they 
dominate the mind and become more po- 
tent than the objects from which they 
derived their origin. If seeing is believing, 
as indubitably is it true that believing is 
seeing. Hence it is quite vain to attempt to 
separate religion from theology. Man must 
formulate his experience, and as he think- 

21 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

eth in his heart so is he. Indeed theology, 
once formulated, creates experience, com- 
municates it to others, forms a common 
type for multitudes, and perpetuates it from 
age to age. Modifications in theology af- 
fect experience, as a new experience may 
produce a new theology. 

Emotions, however, extend themselves 
beyond the object which first excited them, 
and are undiscriminating. Reason, too, seeks 
ever wider fields, and theology annexes 
whole provinces which at first were foreign 
to its proper self. Then religious emotion, 
following in its wake, makes all become 
sacred. Men have found a veritable word 
of God in the Scriptures, sometimes in a 
single passage, and the emotion aroused 
has embraced the entire volume, Old Tes- 
tament and New. When the first disciples 
believed in the crucified and risen Christ 
every part of the Old Testament became 
for them a Christian book testifying to this 

22 



THE PRESENT STATE OF THEOLOGY 

one truth, and they wondered at the blind- 
ness which had kept them from seeing that 
which all the time had been before their 
eyes. It was plain at once that Christ ful- 
filled the law, that the ritual was the shadow 
of which he is the substance, and that all 
the prophets testified of him. When phi- 
losophy was converted, logic combined 
with a theory of history and cosmology, 
and the entire system received the sacred 
sanction. All theology is included in the 
divine evangel, so that attack upon any 
part is disloyalty to Christ, just as criticism 
of any part of the Bible is criticism of its 
divine author. At last the affirmation is 
made that a single error found in the sacred 
oracles would disprove their divine origin, 
and that any link displaced from the chain 
of logic would endanger salvation. Thus 
the circle is complete. It begins with the 
revelation, which converts the soul, then 
by logic and philosophy the experience is 

2 3 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

formulated, and finally the experience is 
declared to rest upon theology, the facts 
upon their exposition and explanation. 

Thus given dominion, theology hedges 
itself with obstacles and builds fences 
around the temple so that the unworthy 
may not approach the sacred place. It in- 
sists that its logic, its dogmas, its history 
and even its ontology are necessary parts 
of the truth, and that a soundly religious 
experience substantiates the entire con- 
struction. Disputes may arise upon minor 
points which thereby assume portentous 
importance and justify the formation of 
sects and the excommunication of heretics. 
The scribes insist that men must worship 
God " on this mountain " or " in Jerusalem " 
and condemn him who teaches that the 
Father seeks all who would worship Him 
in truth. 

But no system of logic and philosophy 
can confine permanently men's minds. It 

24 



THE PRESENT STATE OF THEOLOGY 

is clear that theology is open to attack 
from many sides, and that any system can 
mantain itself intact only while men remain 
with their general conceptions unchanged. 
When a new age in science or philosophy 
begins, theology must study its problems 
afresh. With the conservatism which be- 
longs to religion, theology may resist all 
change, since men do not like to criticise 
that which is sacred. The new science is 
"falsely so called," and it is denounced in 
the name of God as godless, rationalistic, 
unbelieving, arrogant, destructive, new, 
while against it is arraigned the testimony 
of the great men of the past and the pious 
feelings of the present. When the new 
science is finally established however, the- 
ology may embrace it, accommodating this 
and that and stoutly maintaining that no- 
thing is changed. As a further step science 
will then be incorporated in theology and 
religious truth clothed in its new garb, a 

25 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

new theology being formed which in turn 
shall be subjected to the same process as 
knowledge broadens and advances. Or an 
attempted separation may be made between 
the two provinces, and that be asserted as 
true to faith which is admittedly false to 
science. Or, once more, theology may seek 
to find some saving remnant, omitting this, 
restating that, until a citadel is reached 
which shall be safe from foes. But theology 
may become new in a different way, — 
through a fresh experience. The religious 
life may make new organs for itself, either, 
as in the Reformation, affirming its return 
to a more primitive experience, or re- 
nouncing the historic name. 

In the history of theology, however, 
there are personal equations to be taken 
into account, since the established system 
by no means satisfied all aspirations even 
in the "ages of faith," and since philosophy 
and logic appeal differently to different 

26 



THE PRESENT STATE OF THEOLOGY 

minds. It is only from the safe distance of 
centuries that we can look back upon any 
epoch and view it as unruffled and at one. 
Besides most men are easily satisfied with 
doctrine, and the influence of theology is 
overemphasized. A mass of other influ- 
ences determine how they shall think and 
what they shall believe. Though every 
man has implicitly a theology, as each has 
a philosophy, it is only the few who really 
comprehend the system. They set a stand- 
ard under which the rest gather, often 
fighting in causes which they neither com- 
prehend nor love. 

In our day these difficulties are at the 
maximum. Men feel comparatively little 
respect for authority and will not submit to 
discipline. They flatter themselves that 
their judgments are their own. Conformity 
is not in fashion, and the title " heretic " 
has lost its terrors. Not before has there 
been such need to take the personal equa- 

27 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

tion so into account. Moreover, history in 
the last fifty years has seen its greatest 
intellectual revolution; the universe has 
broadened and lengthened until no bound- 
aries remain. Philosophy and logic are in 
a similar case of revolution, though in 
these realms none attempts to speak with 
certain voice. Hence students question 
their right to the Christian name, and the 
voices of their teachers are discordant, for 
no new theology commands large assent. 
Religion is threatened, the ecclesiastical 
order is discredited, and chaos seems come 
again. With many, therefore, the safest 
way is still the old truth, — not indeed in 
its fullness, but in bits and patches, with 
only here and there one who holds entire 
that which, a little while ago, was esteemed 
the faith. 

When theology consciously breaks with 
the historic type it may turn in various 
directions, only three of which shall detain 

28 



THE PRESENT STATE OF THEOLOGY 

us. To some men religious experience has 
burst the bonds of the historic faith and 
has come out into a larger place. The in- 
tellectual movement of our time occupies 
the largest place in their minds, so that 
theology must conform to science and rea- 
son prepare a way for faith. The teachings 
of science surpass the most inspired fancies 
of the prophets and poets. The earth has 
become the universe. God can no longer 
be pictured under the old forms of King 
or Father. He is the infinite, the absolute, 
and religion is man's " attitude to the 
whole." Humanity struggles towards Him, 
the historic religions being records of its 
progress; so that while " religions are many, 
religion is one." The prophets of the past 
were men in whom burned a divine fire, 
and the fire is not quenched, but renewed, 
from age to age. We may describe the 
light as we see it, and as freely as they de- 
scribed the vision God gave to them. Sci- 

29 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

ence deals with appearances, but religion 
opens the door to ultimate reality, which is 
the substance of all passing forms. It abides, 
while they are rolled up as a garment and 
perish. Reason is man's highest preroga- 
tive, making him akin to God, and through 
it the Highest is revealed. A pure intel- 
lectual love of God is salvation, and with 
its attainment we are one with Him. 
Monism has a select following, and it claims 
kinship with a long list of philosophic 
saints, without and within the church. 

A larger group seek Him through the 
emotions. We are told that the " sub-con- 
scious" is purer than our ordinary con- 
sciousness, and that through it God com- 
municates with man. It is not the intellect 
but the feelings which introduce us to 
reality. Of it all else is symbolic, and must 
be left behind in the experience of imme- 
diacy. In feelings only are we directly 
conscious of the Divine with a certainty 

3° 



THE PRESENT STATE OF THEOLOGY 

which cannot be questioned nor communi- 
cated. Only they who thus know God can 
be certain of Him. Theology disappears, 
not because disproved, but because the ex- 
perience renders it valueless. 

Or, once more, wearied with this search 
for the infinite and the absolute, whether 
the feelings or the intellect be invoked, 
others turn to the practical sphere. Not in 
speculation or in dreams, but in activity, is 
God found, — a the daily round, the com- 
mon task" offering 

all we need to ask, 
Room to deny ourselves, a road 
To bring us daily nearer God. 

The universe in its inner structure is be- 
yond human knowledge, and emotions may 
be wrongly interpreted. Moreover, such 
dreams lead no whither save to separate us 
from our fellows. Far other was the Glad 
Tidings which came to the " little ones," 
and whose preachers were not philosophers 

31 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

or mystics, but plain men of the people. 
Let us bring philosophy back to earth, 
like Socrates and Kant, and religion once 
more to the ignorant, the outcasts, the 
slaves, like Paul. God supplies man's needs, 
and his true servants are concerned not so 
much with hymning his praises as with the 
relief of humanity, — the common human- 
ity which suffers from the illness of body, 
mind, and soul. The soul cries out for the 
living God, who wipes away tears and 
bears the burdens of the common life. The 
prayer Christ taught is for the daily bread, 
and faith looks for immediate succor in- 
stead of seeking post-mortem bliss. The 
rest is pure luxury for petted groups, en- 
dowed with leisure to consider their 
" attitude to the universe as a whole " I It 
matters little whether the universe be 
pluralistic or monistic, or God be one or 
many, or a power among powers seeking 
our help in the struggle against evil. Any 

3 2 



THE PRESENT STATE OF THEOLOGY 

theology will avail if it works, for only by 
its fruits shall the truth be known. 

Theology is far from death or sleep. If 
we take it in its larger sense, men are keen 
for its problems and their solutions. It is 
authority which has waned, so that it is 
looked upon as useful only for the imma- 
ture and ignorant. Hence there is uncer- 
tainty, and again men ask, What is truth, 
and where shall it be found ? 



Ill 

IS CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE UNIFORM? 

Christianity in its broadest definition 
is the religion of all those who call Jesus, 
Lord. It includes all types of religious ex- 
perience, but marks them with character- 
istics of its own. Its denominations have a 
common heritage of history and doctrine, 
which gives them a unity in the midst of 
their wide diversities. 

For fifteen centuries the Occident has 
been monotheistic, believing in one God, 
all wise, all powerful, self-existent, all holy, 
all good, Creator, Preserver, Ruler of 
the Universe. His infinity separates Him 
from men, yet the earth is the scene of his 
constant and miraculous intervention. The 
physical forces of the world are only sec- 
ondary causes, moved by his will, so that 

34 



IS CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE UNIFORM ? 

He truly makes the sun to rise and the rain 
to fall. He watches over individuals, and 
answers prayers by special providence. 
He has shaped history for man's redemp- 
tion, giving a law, revealing his will by 
prophets and apostles, and appearing in the 
fullness of time on earth, incarnate in Jesus 
of Nazareth. Before Him all men shall ap- 
pear in the final day of the world's history. 
Those who put their trust in Him shall be 
admitted to his presence, a salvation which 
includes all blessedness, while they who 
reject Him shall be banished, a fate which 
includes all misery. 

Salvation is thus essentially unworldly, 
the earth the scene for the tragedy of God 
and the human soul. The divine word pre- 
vails: "What shall it profit a man if he 
gain the whole world and lose his own 
soul?" In comparison with the issues of 
the eternal destiny, the earthly life is worth- 
less — of value only as a preparation for 

35 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

the reality beyond. The citizenship of the 
Christian is in heaven, and his thoughts are 
centred there. 

With these ideas there is a common 
type of experience, of fear of God and pun- 
ishment and of a hope for escape through 
Christ the Saviour. This hope is variously 
mediated in different communions, so that 
detailed attempts to describe the Chris- 
tian experience are rightfully open to the 
charge of sectarian narrowness. Yet we 
venture to describe one type, that which 
for one hundred and fifty years has been 
called the Evangelical, and which in sub- 
stance is found under many other names. 

As in all Protestantism, it is individual- 
istic: the doctrines of the faith are to be 
realized in the consciousness, and the 
drama of the redemption is to be the ex- 
perience of every Christian. By nature a 
man is depraved, justly condemned to 
eternal woe and insensible to his condition. 

36 



IS CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE UNIFORM ? 

The world and its interests fill his thoughts 
and employ his will. If he join in public 
worship, it is as he joins in other associa- 
tions of the community; and if he feel at 
times an elevation of spirit, it is aesthetic 
or social and not truly religious. When 
aroused from this condition, he is like a 
man awakened from sleep to the knowledge 
of deadly danger. God is no longer an ab- 
straction nor a tradition, but is immediately 
known. The soul is as certain of Him as of 
its own existence, — a Presence invisible 
and inaudible, but manifest to the spiritual 
sense. Were this knowledge of God all, 
Christianity would be a message of despair, 
and we the most miserable of men. But the 
law is only a dark background on which is 
revealed the gospel, the glad tidings of 
great joy. " God so loved the world that He 
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth on him should not perish, but have 
eternal life." For God is both King and Re- 

37 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

deemer. In many ways He revealed this 
unto the fathers, and He made it clear in 
the life and death of Jesus Christ. Christ is 
at once our brother and Son of God. By a 
divine act he became man, sharing our 
sorrows, and he took upon himself the 
punishment of our sin. Having offered a 
perfect sacrifice upon the cross, he rose 
from the dead, and is now seated at the 
right hand of God. He is the pledge of 
redemption, the instrument of his Father's 
love. 

" Redemption, however, is not a mechani- 
cal thing, — " opus operatum," — for it 
works by faith. Faith consists of the con- 
fession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, 
and of the appropriation of his saving acts. 
The gospel becomes the dominant factor 
in the consciousness, for only they who know 
their need can appreciate so great redemp- 
tion. Hence first is the preaching of the law, 
and afterwards the gospel. First is despair 

38 



IS CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE UNIFORM ? 

beneath God's wrath, and afterward the joy 
of pardon. With it the consciousness of 
salvation is complete, but conflict is not at 
an end. Too deeply had sin entered into 
the substance of man's being to be cast out 
without further struggle. Henceforth life 
is a fight against sin, with alternations of 
triumph and defeat. But the Christian has 
assurance of success, since God works 
within him to will and do of his good 
pleasure. The Father will not desert his 
own, for whom Christ died, but sends his 
Spirit into their hearts, transforming their 
substance and making them sons of God. 
From this new nature flow good affections 
and deeds. Thus is salvation, in part real- 
ized now, and to be consummated in heaven. 
Such an experience carries its own cre- 
dentials. A profound emotion transforms 
the world, renews the soul, and changes the 
course of life. The old desires and appetites 
pass away, a new character being formed 

39 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

opposed to the old. It is the second birth 
of a new personality, to which the old ap- 
pears strange, the past related to the present 
only by a memory. This experience works 
righteousness, fills lives with peace and the 
sense of God's presence, and redeems hope- 
less men and women. 

But the strength of the emotions thus 
called forth result in depression. Life can- 
not continue at such a height. The soul, 
feeling it is deserted by God, accuses itself 
of sin against the Spirit. Life alternates be- 
tween hope and despair, joy and sorrow. 
Sometimes the emotional state becomes 
the chief concern, and religion is predomi- 
nantly introspective. When the experience 
is vivid it extends itself from soul to soul. 
It claims exclusive right to the Christian 
name, and looks for a conversion of the 
world in the same fashion. It believes that 
God's power has worked this miracle, for 
the soul feels itself seized by a superhuman 

40 



IS CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE UNIFORM ? 

power. As the emotion takes possession of 
a community, there is a revival of religion; 
but as with the individual, so with the 
crowd. The emotion cannot continue, and 
a depressed condition succeeds when all 
appeals are in vain. Sometimes a genera- 
tion must pass before religious experience 
can again become powerful. 

Moreover, some personalities are not sus- 
ceptible to this appeal, while others are too 
susceptible. The latter by an unconscious 
imitation reproduce the emotional manifes- 
tations. The former are left untouched, and 
may doubt either the reality of their own 
religious life or of all religious life. The 
experience seeks to base itself upon the re- 
ligious experience of Paul; but not all the 
apostles had the same experience, and " God 
reveals himself in many ways." Thus, when 
this experience is made normative, the doc- 
trine based upon it ceases to be the gospel 
for mankind and becomes the gospel for the 

4 1 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

emotionally elect. In our day the tradition 
and the doctrine remain, but the power is 
gone. The experience itself appears out of 
date and strange. Children grow into reli- 
gious experience as into intellectual — 
normally — from childhood through youth 
to maturity. Evangelical phrases are re- 
tained, to be sure, but even in conservative 
pulpits preachers no longer set themselves 
to the task of convicting men of sin. So little 
is a vivid experience expected that men are 
considered unconscious Christians, though 
they make no profession of the change of 
heart. It is significant of the change in the 
meaning of the words, for how can an ex- 
perience be unconscious if it consist in re- 
pentance for sin and trust in the merits of 
Christ alone for salvation ! It is evident that 
conversion has lost its meaning. 

The difference between the child of God 
and the moral, respectable child of the 
world is only one in degree. Religion, in- 

42 



IS CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE UNIFORM ? 

deed, returns to the state called natural, 
and the Protestant experience reverts to 
the type of the mother church, for the 
membership is recruited from the children 
of believers in regular succession, and be- 
yond this circle social conditions are more 
important than religious convictions in de- 
termining denominational constituencies. 
Comparatively few are brought into the 
church from the " world," and church union 
appears feasible because interest in the 
points once thought all important has 
waned. 

A confession of faith implies no longer 
the personal experience of the divine trag- 
edy of a lost soul, redeemed by the cross 
and the risen Saviour, but the acceptance, 
on the strength of church tradition, of the 
articles of the Apostles' Creed, and a gen- 
eral agreement with the ecclesiastical or- 
ganization. 

In religious circles this condition is re- 
43 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

cognized with deep concern. It is true that 
the experience we have described is still 
known in its fullness by some persons, 
while others insist that it is an extreme 
type and not truly representative. But it 
will scarcely be denied that some approxi- 
mation to this thoroughgoing conviction 
of sin and complete trust in the merits of 
the Saviour is representative of the event 
we call conversion, nor that the complaint 
of a waning religious power is general. 
Often it is urged that the old gospel be 
preached anew, but these appeals accom- 
plish little, since though they be followed 
in form, the convictions which gave power 
to the preaching of Wesley, Edwards, 
Nettleton, and Finney are wanting. Even 
Moody did not preach the law, and his gos- 
pel was not theirs. It is the love of God 
and his mercy for all men which now have 
first place. The old gospel is not preached 
because conditions beyond the control of 

44 



IS CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE UNIFORM? 

popes, or bishops, or general assemblies 
shape men's thoughts and determine their 
belief. The attitude of mind which made 
the old appeals effective is gone. This 
world is not a " desert drear," and even 
churchmen are not other-worldly-minded. 
For the first time in history the multitudes 
believe in progress and look forward with 
eager expectation. How important this is 
I shall not attempt to show; but a combi- 
nation of causes — the progress of science, 
the never-ceasing inventions, the increase 
of wealth from the exploitation of virgin 
continents, man's new control of nature 
— combine to create an interest in the 
world which theology is powerless to com- 
bat. Man cannot look upon himself as to- 
tally depraved and dependent upon super- 
human aid. It is the triumph of reason 
which has given him command over the 
forces of nature, and not magic nor miracles 
nor prayer. In an age which has evolution 

45 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

for its scientific formula, man is not fallen, 
but risen from helplessness, ignorance, and 
a brute inheritance. He cannot regard him- 
self as totally depraved when he is no longer 
under tutors and governors but rules him- 
self. As never before, the voice of the people 
is the voice of God, for it determines right 
and wrong as it makes law. It is the com- 
mon belief that when the issue is clearly 
joined the people will decide aright, and in 
any case they will decide. Man is not now 
under authority, but he wills authority. In 
a democratic age the older reverence and 
obedience are forgotten. We are all free, 
equal, with inherent rights, and we no longer 
recognize the divine right of king or church. 
Men cease to think of God as king, for they 
no longer know what king means. With the 
kingly government gone, vindicatory justice 
disappears, and the greatest good of the 
greatest number takes its place. The law 
does not seek vengeance, but the reform oi 

4 6 



IS CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE UNIFORM? 

the criminal and the protection of society. 
Especially in our insistence upon the re- 
sponsibility of the individual does a vicarious 
punishment appear foreign and even barba- 
rous, and from it the American in China or 
other lands where it still exists must be pro- 
tected by extra-territoriality. There is a 
wide feeling of sympathy and brotherliness 
which extends to the outcast and the crim- 
inal, so that the idea that the saved in heaven 
find an added joy in the contemplation of 
the sufferings of the lost is repugnant and 
impossible. While the doctrine of a vicarious 
punishment becomes increasingly incom- 
prehensible, the ideas of sympathetic fel- 
lowship and service are widely influential, 
so that to many persons of ethical sensibility 
the thought of a personal salvation apart 
from the redemption of society has no at- 
traction. 

In its condemnation of Modernism the 
Church of Rome has firmly denied the 

47 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

right and validity of these movements in 
society, which yet it can neither stop nor 
control. It decrees that the theology of the 
twelfth century shall be the theology of the 
twentieth, and it states more emphatically 
than ever its claims to a divine authority, — 
claims which it cannot enforce and to which 
the world pays little attention. Still less 
can Protestant churches succeed in such an 
attempt. Their fundamental appeal to the 
experience of the individual now bears full 
fruit, and they rightfully claim the modern 
movement as in part their own. So with 
them the questions press for answers. Must 
men in the church deny what they are 
taught in the university, and affirm that 
which science forces them to deny ? Has 
the gospel of Jesus Christ no effective ap- 
peal to this progressive,optimistic, scientific, 
democratic age ? Or must men be freed 
from the modern spirit before they can be 
filled with the spirit of Christ? Is other- 

4 8 



IS CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE UNIFORM? 

worldly-mindedness the only alternative to 
worldly-mindedness, or may men believe 
in a new earth in which dwelleth Chris- 
tian love, a world filled with the spirit of 
God? 

We have all too briefly sketched the re- 
ligious situation, and we have failed in our 
purpose if it is not plain that a restudy and 
a restatement of fundamental Christian 
truth is necessary. Many earnest men and 
women are not satisfied with the traditional 
forms of worship, nor with the traditional 
theology, nor with the traditional Chris- 
tian experience. They might well use the 
words of Amos : there is " a famine ... of 
hearing the words of the Lord/' for they 
" wander from sea to sea, and from the north 
even to the east," they " run to and fro to 
seek the word of the Lord " and do " not find 
it." Christians who are content with the 
older forms and statements and experience 
reproach them as being irreligious, and 

49 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

many persons suppose that religion itself is 
in danger. But the reproaches and the fears 
are needless. It is not a time for mutual re- 
proaches, but for an understanding. There 
are causes at work which are not of the 
will of men, and forces which are not sub- 
ject to their control. It is a day for men of 
differing views to say, " Come now, and let 
us reason together!" It is a time, not for 
discouragement, but for hope. It is because 
religion is of man's nature that it cannot pass 
away, and for the same reason that it can- 
not remain unchanged. We who are of the 
church, rejoicing in its past and participat- 
ing in its present, have no fears that the 
Spirit of Christ will desert it. 

The gospel of Jesus Christ has not lost 
its power. It is deeply throned in the hearts 
of millions. It cannot pass away. It has gone 
through many changes in many ages and 
many lands, and itself has been changed in 
the process. So it will be again, as it shall 

5° 



IS CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE UNIFORM? 

prove itself in the new age the power of 
God unto salvation. Doubtless in the future, 
as in the past, many forms of religious ex- 
perience will find a place under the com- 
mon name. Ecclesiastical censures have 
lost their power and excommunication its 
terrors. Only one's self can exclude one's 
self from the right to the Christian name. 
And each must utter the truth as he knows 
it, for only in the freest discussion can the 
common truth be reached. It is in such a 
spirit that I venture to set forth once more 
the gospel of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of 
God. 



IV 

JESUS THE MESSIAH 

When confused by the conflicting claims 
of sects and individuals to the possession 
of the truth of any great master, we turn 
from all advocates to him whose name they 
bear, as to the supreme Judge from whom 
there is no appeal. So in the multitude of 
Buddhist sects, discordant and assertive, 
we seek the words of Gautama and ask 
which, if any, may be true to the doctrine 
he proclaimed. Exact reproduction we shall 
not seek. Doubtless every living word is 
a seed cast into the ground which gathers 
to itself forces from earth and air and sun, 
so that the germ does not contain the 
whole, but only the power and prophecy 
of the perfected fruit. In religion we should 
expect this; and the cry which has been 

52 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

raised more than once, " Back to Confu- 
cius/' or "Back to Christ/' may not mean a 
mere return to the message in its first form. 
But this it surely will mean — that the de- 
velopment shall not contradict the source, 
that it shall make chief what the master 
made chief, with other matters in a just 
subordination. It is when systems call them- 
selves by the common name, and yet reject 
the essential truth for which the master 
lived, that they forfeit their right to the in- 
heritance. No doubt, in the endless variety 
of men and times much shall be added, and 
some things overlooked, or cast knowingly 
aside; but for the essence we must go to 
him. 

Thus we turn to Jesus; not to the creeds, 
nor to the theologians, nor even to the 
earliest disciples. Perhaps these may em- 
phasize aright, and if so we shall be the 
more rewarded in our search; and if they 
differ, with whatever sadness we must still 

53 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

reject their witness, since Christians may 
not contradict the Christ. 

Even a cursory view shows that the 
earliest writers were not agreed on every 
point, and that there were differences in 
titles, in estimates of value, and in em- 
phasis. Peter was not wholly at one with 
Paul, nor James with either, nor does the 
Johannine Christ make the same impression 
as Jesus of the Synoptic gospels. It is a 
many-sided estimate which we get, in part 
determined by a varying tradition, in part 
by selective affinity, in part by the differ- 
ing religious experiences. Already in the 
New Testament it is apparent that Chris- 
tianity is to make appeal to differing minds 
in many differing ways. 

Modern scholarship, with limitless labor, 
has sought to show us Jesus as he walked 
among men and taught them. The very 
differences in the traditions aid the attempt; 
and though our sources are all too scanty, 

54 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

still we may discern his features and hear 
his words. Much is left uncertain which we 
desire determined, but there is little room 
to doubt as to the gospel which he pro- 
claimed. 

No prophet or founder of a religion sets 
forth a teaching which is altogether new. 
He is a reflection of his age, and repeats the 
message of the holy men of old. In every 
sphere the extremest radical is conservative 
in the largest portion of his life and thought, 
while in religion the reformer rejoices to 
declare that his has been the ancient doc- 
trine, long distorted or forgotten but now 
again set forth. Christianity least of all has 
questioned the formative influences of the 
prophets of the Hebrew faith, for it has taken 
the Old Testament as a Christian book, 
declaring that the gospel is latent in the Old 
Testament and made manifest in the New. 
Jesus is not a critic nor an iconoclast, but 
he comes to "fulfill." The commandments 

55 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

are God's law, the temple is God's house, and 
the prophets are God's messengers. So com- 
pletely did Jesus dwell within the bound- 
aries of his people that there is no indica- 
tion that he was influenced by the traditions 
or the learning of other lands. With these 
lands and their people he comes in contact 
only in an incidental way. He was a man 
of one book, trained in it from childhood, 
and familiar with its text and with its spirit. 

His knowledge of the larger world of 
men was as limited as his knowledge of its 
learning. He was a plain man of the plain 
people, dwelling with workingmen and sup- 
porting himself by the labor of his hands. 
Hence he does not speak as a scholar, nor 
as a cosmopolitan, nor as a statesman or 
aristocrat, but as one of the common people, 
with whom his life is bound up and whose 
fortunes and ways of thought he shared. 

The common people have certain advan- 
tages of an educational sort, for they know 

56 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

men at first hand, and not through interme- 
diaries, — servants or books, — or afar off 
as separated by rank and wealth. They are 
not made artificial by etiquette and secre- 
tive by refinement, but they are an open 
book, more interesting to each other than 
written books, and more instructive. They 
are not of the nature of the recluse who 
thinks the presence of his fellows an intru- 
sion, nor of the philanthropist who conde- 
scendingly gives those who lie at his gate 
the crumbs which fall from his table. They 
share each other's burdens and hopes and 
fears and sorrows; for to be sick, heavy- 
laden, anxious, hungry, homeless, in prison, 
is a common lot, which may come to any 
one. 

With Jews the family was the chief 
social group, a tiny cooperative common- 
wealth, the type of all larger groups. The 
nation was thought of in the same terms, 
having a common parentage and being 

57 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

united by inheritance and destiny. Tradi- 
tions gave the consciousness of the past 
which was needed, and belief in God, the 
God of the fathers, invested all with a sa- 
cred significance, — a belief which affected 
the whole life, since our modern distinc- 
tions were not existent. The world was 
filled with supernatural agencies, the im- 
mediate causes of good and evil. Demons 
were sources of the evils of the common 
life, and exorcism and magic expelled and 
controlled them. God, too, was an imme- 
diate factor in every-day existence, sending 
suffering as punishment and happiness as a 
reward. All natural phenomena were under 
his control, so that in the most literal sense 
He made the sun rise and the rain descend, 
and for the direct punishment of individuals 
might cause a tower to fall, or a man to be 
born blind, or the wrath of a ruler to visit 
him, for He moved the hearts of men as He 
moved the objects of nature. 

58 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

The distinction between the natural and 
the supernatural was not made, for the idea 
of " nature n did not exist. Hence there 
were no miracles in the modern sense. 
That a man should rise from the dead was 
so credible that Herod, when he heard of 
the healings of Jesus, as his first hypothe- 
sis suggested that it was John the Baptist, 
— whose head was cut off. Wonders and 
signs indicated some superhuman agency, 
good or bad. Witnesses were seldom cross- 
examined, nor was evidence in the scien- 
tific sense required. All things were pos- 
sible and credible. 

With this practical view of religion was 
associated a simple theology. God was in- 
deed Creator, but chiefly He was the helper 
of the people in every-day affairs. He was 
King of kings, but in an especial sense 
God of Israel. This made still more terrible 
the Roman dominion, for why should the 
God of Israel permit that his people should 

59 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

be in disgrace and suffering while heathen 
nations were exalted? In part, doubtless, it 
was for the sins of the people, which also 
accounted for demoniacal possession, and 
in part it was merely a mysterious and tem- 
porary dispensation until the coming of the 
Messiah, who with divine powers should 
overwhelm the enemies of God and of his 
people, and introduce an everlasting reign 
of peace, righteousness, and joy. These 
Messianic dreams were the consolation of 
the people, sustaining their courage and 
maintaining their faith in the midst of trials. 
Descriptions of the New Jerusalem excited 
their desires, and there was study of the 
ancient oracles for the determination of the 
times and the seasons appointed by God for 
the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, so 
that impostors found a following by pro- 
claiming themselves Messiahs. This popu- 
lar religion had little connection with the 
refinements of theology and ritual, which 

60 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

were left to the scholars and the priests, 
though the people joined in the great na- 
tional festivals, and, doubtless, at a distance 
looked with reverence upon the more ex- 
alted representatives of organized religion. 
They, for their part, despised the people, 
and counted them accursed for not know- 
ing and obeying a law which in its minutiae 
was a yoke too heavy for the common 
man. 

The religion of the Pharisees indeed laid 
great stress on the doing of God's will, and 
in this the poor were at one with them. The 
festivals were observed and the sacrifices 
offered because God so commanded, and 
beyond this it was not necessary to inquire. 
And yet between the common man and the 
man who was pious by profession there was 
a difference. In theory neither made a clear 
distinction between the ceremonial and the 
moral law; but the former laid stress upon 
the ethics which have to do with human 

61 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

relations, and the latter still more upon rites 
and sacraments. It is the scholars and 
priests who are punctilious, and who have 
time to frame theories of "sin." The plain 
man knows sins, but not sin. He readily 
excuses much which a greater refinement 
condemns, and excepting under passion he 
is not insistent about punishment, caring 
nothing at all for the maintenance of the 
majesty of the law. The sin which he 
most deeply resents is oppression by the 
powerful and the rich, for this embitters his 
daily lot. 

Helpfulness is the great virtue, born of 
instincts which are of the family, and the 
sex relations, and of the compassionate 
sympathy which comes from daily contact. 
Primitive man has his being in the group, 
and his interests are bound up with it to a 
degree which we scarcely understand. To 
give all which one has is not uncommon 
generosity among folks whose all is very 

62 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

little. The conception of righteousness is 
far enough from our notions of a rigid law 
and its strict enactment. Indeed, among the 
Old Testament prophets the ideal of the 
righteous king was not that of one who 
maintained justice in our modern sense, a 
sense still unknown, but of the compassion- 
ate and merciful ruler, the defender of the 
fatherless, who would compel the rich to 
help out of their abundance and would ex- 
alt the poor and needy. 

Such righteousness, to be sure, fails 
strangely on occasions, as do also the vir- 
tues of the poor, their kindness alternating 
with hardness and even cruelty, for nature 
is scarcely to be trusted until it is trained 
and made purposeful and intelligent. 

From such a world came Jesus, born and 
bred in it, partaking of its ideas and living 
its life. He did not come to it, but he came 
from it, a man among his fellow men. He 
was not a mysterious and awful oracle 

63 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

shrouded in mystery, nor a voice crying in 
the wilderness like John the Baptist, nor 
an apparition like Elijah, nor a statesman 
like Jeremiah, nor a seer of strange visions 
like Ezekiel, — and he was at the furthest 
remove from the frenzy of soothsayers and 
seers. The people knew whence he was, — 
the son of Joseph and Mary, with his bro- 
thers and sisters in the community. Was 
he not the carpenter, and did not that 
mean that he labored with his hands, build- 
ing, repairing, eating the bread and sleep- 
ing the sleep of the laborer? 

It is impossible to overemphasize the 
oneness of Jesus with his time and his peo- 
ple, unless in so doing we overlook that 
which in him was different, for it was this 
difference that made the carpenter to be 
Christ the Saviour. Nor are we able pre- 
cisely to define the difference; and it is 
easier to give him some great title, such as 
Messiah or Son of God, and let it stand in 

6 4 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

lieu of an understanding. But we may be 
able to see a little beneath the surface. 

We have spoken of the virtues of the 
poor as instinctive; with Jesus they became 
purposeful and in the highest sense con- 
trolling. He understood at once himself, 
his aims, and the changes in the charac- 
ter of other men and, through them, in the 
whole social order which he would ac- 
complish. His aims were not for himself, 
for power and fame and recognition, but 
he desired social and universal results. His 
terms were those of the common people, 
but he filled those terms with new mean- 
ing, or better, he made apparent and brought 
to full consciousness the meanings which 
they instinctively contained. 

The family is by nature the social unit, 
and Jesus makes its terms dominate the 
whole series of his conceptions. God is the 
father, not the king. Though he habitually 
uses the term " kingdom/ 5 yet he gives the 

65 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

word a new meaning; for his Father's king- 
dom is not like that of the nations, in which 
the great ones have lordship, but in it the 
chief is the servant of all. What have simple 
folks to do with kings ? It is they who wear 
soft raiment who are in kings' houses. King 
is a term which separates and makes re- 
mote, but God draws near when " Father " 
is the title by which he is addressed. The 
ceremonial language of ritual and formal 
prayers, with the pomp and circumstance 
and devices of priests, are at once rendered 
obsolete. Jesus teaches to pray in the simple 
language of every day for daily needs, not 
in archaic words invested with mysterious 
power. Whole masses of theology, too, are 
swept away, — the things concerning which 
learned men dispute. How is it possible 
for God, who is infinite justice, to forgive 
sins ? The Father forgives as in the parable 
of the Prodigal Son; as Jesus forgave, — 
" Man, thy sins are forgiven thee." How 

66 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

does God forgive ? As we forgive, as we also 
have forgiven our debtors. It is true there is 
a store of wrath, but it is poured out upon 
those who oppress the Father's little ones, 
binding heavy burdens upon their shoulders 
which they are not able to bear, and thus 
closing the Kingdom of God to them. The 
harlots and the outcasts go in before these 
professionally pious ones. 

The desire of God is that men should 
be his true sons, and this is the chief aim 
of Jesus' teaching. He would not compel 
obedience, but he would awaken the same 
purpose which impelled himself. His dis- 
ciples are to be sons of the Father, not by 
virtue of a metaphysical relationship for 
which he cared nothing, nor because God 
created them, but by virtue of a moral 
enthusiasm, loving as the Father loves, for- 
giving as He forgives, forbearing as He for- 
bears, and serving as He serves. And all 
this for the unloving and ungrateful, without 

6 7 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

expecting anything in return, for He makes 
his sun to rise on the evil and the good and 
sends his rain on the just and on the unjust. 
Jesus puts no limits on his own eagerness 
to serve, and he would have his disciples 
like himself in devotion, taking up the cross 
as he took up the cross, and, as John puts 
it, being one with God as Jesus is one with 
Him. 

As Jesus thus seeks not to lay down a 
code of laws but to form character, he sets 
forth his principle in parables, paradoxes, 
and with the humor of the prophet who is 
in deepest earnest. He does not utter com- 
monplaces which any one may repeat, for 
. he demands complete devotion. It is not 
an easy thing to be his disciple, for he asks 
the same radical, revolutionary self-sacrific- 
ing spirit which animated himself. He did 
not teach in the least like a moral philoso- 
pher who weighs the precept, the situation, 
and the words, but with the unrestrained 

68 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

enthusiasm of the prophet through whom 
God speaks. He would have the supreme 
virtue, regardless of common sense and the 
limits of ordinary natures. To love one's 
family and those who love us — every one 
does that; but to love our enemies, those 
who defame and persecute us, to love the 
unloving and the unlovable — to do the im- 
possible — this is the way of the children 
of the Father. Thus, and thus only, does 
Jesus describe God's perfection, and thus 
only are his children to share in it. 

In the nature of the case such teaching 
cannot terminate in the individual, but in- 
volves society and its reconstruction. It is 
not self-contemplative, introspective, anx- 
iously inquiring about its own salvation; for 
its gaze is fixed on others, and its supreme 
desire is to serve. Strong as is his emphasis 
upon individual discipleship, this is directed 
to the larger end. It is true he does not 
conceive of the kingdom as the outcome of 

69 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

his disciples' efforts, but as the miraculous 
result of the immediate work of God; and 
yet he thinks of the kingdom of the Father 
as present, for where is the Spirit there is 
the kingdom, and we are not anxiously to 
search for the signs of its coming, for it is 
already among us. He does not anticipate 
its promotion through the discovery of new 
forms for society, and he has nothing to say 
of political or industrial constitutions and 
conditions. Not at all is he committed to 
any theory, socialistic or individualistic, 
as to the world and the fashion of it. His 
kingdom is composed of men who make 
compassionate sympathy the ruling motive, 
who are convinced that with this as primary 
they are in accordance with the Heavenly 
Father and are his sons. Such men are far 
from seeking their own advancement and 
happiness, for by definition they labor for 
those about them, so that a great mass of 
philanthropic endeavor accompanies them. 

70 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

This, indeed, is largely the sign of their 
discipleship, that they heal as the Master 
heals. But still more, accompanying this as 
the spirit accompanies the body, inspiring 
it, directing it, being the real factor, is the 
eager inner life which, fully conscious at 
once of its relation to God and its relation 
to men, understands that the Divine King- 
dom in its essential nature is nothing else 
than the possession of such a life by all 
men. The supreme aim is, therefore, not 
the healing of men's bodies, or the mend- 
ing of their fortunes, but the conversion of 
their souls. For nothing else is comparable 
to this, that men should be the sons of the 
Father; and to become a son of God is an 
ethical achievement, an entering into the 
Father's purpose, precisely as an earthly 
son of earthly parents, grown to maturity, 
enters into his father's life purpose and be- 
comes for the first time completely a son. 
This is a unity for which all other unities 

7* 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

are instrumental, existing for the sake of 
such oneness of sympathy and purpose. 

With this revaluation of the individual, 
which makes the inner life supreme and di- 
vine sonship to consist in this attitude of mind 
and life, is also a revaluation of society. 

Jesus was not a revolutionist, nor a re- 
former with a programme. He was not in- 
terested in political or economic theory. He 
summoned men to a new life of sympathetic 
activity, and he looked for a transformation 
of the nation in the coming of the Kingdom. 
This should come through the same mighty 
power which Jesus felt in his soul. He did 
not think of a gradual civilizing of the world 
with a slow advance in morals, knowledge, 
and religion, but he looked to his Father 
who should accomplish this work. Yet not 
without men. Jesus does not discuss the re- 
lations of God's will to man's, predestina- 
tion and freedom; but he speaks in simple 
expression of his own experience, for he was 

72 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

forced to work the works of his Father 
while it was day. As modern scholars state 
natural laws, so does he state the spiritual. 
All may understand it, but it operates in- 
dependently whether we agree or disagree. 
Philosophy may make it luminous and his- 
tory illustrate it, but they can neither estab- 
lish nor abrogate it. It needs essentially 
not sacrament nor ritual, nor ecclesiastical 
organization. It is as simple as the life of 
the family, as the intercourse of farmers, 
artisans, and laborers. It is the social law 
of gravitation, operating before it is under- 
stood, and when explained opening before 
men a new heaven and a new earth. It is 
the only way to happiness, and in it is the 
power of the universe itself, the ultimate 
power which men call God. 

Jesus does not put it under the categories 
of the state. His ideal is not a republic 
like Plato's, but the family extended to all 
mankind. His use of the family terms must 

73 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

have been constant, so often do they recur 
in the brief fragments of his teaching which 
have come to us : " Father/' " my Father/' 
"your Father"; and of men, "my brethren "; 
and of those who are one with him, " my 
mother/' " my sister/' "my brother." The 
illustration of man's relation to God is in 
the parable of the Prodigal Son; and he is 
truly neighbor who acts like the Good 
Samaritan. Jesus is among men as one 
who serves, and he will call his followers 
friends. There is no note of the domineer- 
ing and self-seeking habit of mind, which 
separates and causes men to look at each 
other askance. To the lawyer who glibly 
quotes the twofold law of God he says 
nothing of greater diligence in worship, but 
tells him to go and serve men in distress; 
and this is characteristic, for in no instance 
does he speak of service to God without 
putting service to our fellows first as the 
essential thing. 

74 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

The order of the prayer he taught his 
disciples is most significant. First, that the 
name he loved, Father, should be adored ; 
second, that the Kingdom should come on 
earth and the will of the Father here be 
done, and only third, that our individual 
needs should be satisfied. This, like all his 
teaching, reveals his own character. 

The most glorious mystic vision on the 
mount of transfiguration could not detain 
Jesus while a suffering youth awaited his 
coming. Frequent as were his own re- 
treats into solitude for prayer, they were 
for the strength needed for his ministry to 
man's needs, and might be interrupted when 
the suffering multitude followed, seeking 
for his aid. And finally, not to requote the 
whole gospel, when he describes the great 
judgment day, and himself as judge, the 
same principle controls. There is no theo- 
logical or ecclesiastical test, nothing of 
that which the church calling itself by his 

75 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

name has warred about and made condi- 
tion for fellowship, but his one great prin- 
ciple penetrates all. Even in his glory he 
is identified still with those in prison, with 
the sick, the hungry, the naked, the home- 
less, friendless multitude, " these my bre- 
thren.^ His friends welcomed to his pres- 
ence are they who have helped the helpless 
ones, while those who have hardened their 
hearts to their brother's cry are banished 
from his presence though they eagerly call 
Jesus Lord. 

The other side of the picture makes the 
same impression. He was not the effemi- 
nate, unmoved being so often represented 
in hymns and pictures, for he had an ori- 
ental store of wrath. But it was not for 
those who did not recognize him, or had 
doubts about the origin and metaphysical 
nature of his being, nor for those who did 
not do him honor, nor was it even for the 
sinners of the streets and slums, but for 

7 6 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

those who injured others and who supposed 
that injury to men could be atoned for by 
worship of God. It was unloosed when 
men used the temple service as a source of 
private gain, making his Father's house a 
den of thieves, or when ritual observances 
were thought more important than the re- 
lief of suffering, the keeping of the Sabbath 
ceremonially holy as of greater consequence 
than the healing of the sick. His wrath was 
for men who devoured widows' houses and 
made long prayers, for those who bound 
heavy burdens on others, which they them- 
selves refused to carry, and for those who, 
intent on ritual and ceremony, passed by on 
the other side when they saw men naked and 
wounded unto death. The sin which has no 
forgiveness is not blasphemy of the Son, but 
the ascription of works of loving sympathy 
to the Devil. This is indeed to put evil for 
good and good for evil, to be followers of 
Jehovah in name but of Satan in fact. 

77 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

The ethics of Jesus describe the God 
whom he worshiped. It is often said that 
his words contain no theology, and that we 
must go to Paul or to John or to the Church 
Fathers for it. That is true if formal discus- 
sion of abstractions is meant, or the system- 
atic arrangement of the material which a 
world picture represents. But through his 
teaching and his life is one principle revealed 
far more clearly than in doctrines and dog- 
mas. All is consistent, every word full of 
meaning; but the consistency and the mean- 
ing are of complete simplicity which sees 
one truth and sees it whole. It is the theo- 
logy of the family, and to that does all con- 
form, — man, duty, worship, love, and God. 
He drew from the Old Testament those 
teachings which are precisely to the point, 
and the rest he passed by. Because his 
emphasis is so continual and so exclusive, 
he transforms even these sayings. Nothing 
can be more beautiful than some of the 

78 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

words of the prophets, not even the words 
of Jesus; but he omits all else and sets his 
truth by itself so that the meaning cannot 
be mistaken. "Father" becomes the only 
name for God, and its ethical significance is 
in every way enforced and illustrated. Just 
once does he use "Lord of Heaven and 
Earth/' and then as secondary to " Father," 
indicating the power which at last should 
make the whole family at home with him, 
in peace, — the revelation which had been 
hidden from the wise but is revealed to the 
babes. 

With Jesus theory and practice, doctrine 
and conduct, are one. He has no interest in 
belief about that which has no reference to 
life. Faith is always practical, resulting in 
activity; for otherwise it is mere opinion, 
tradition, or fancy. He trusted in the Father, 
and he slept undisturbed in the midst of the 
storm. "Why are ye fearful ? Have ye not 
yet faith?" Why are ye anxious for rai- 

79 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

ment, for food ? Your Father knoweth that 
ye have need of these things! Seek ye the 
kingdom and its righteousness, and all these 
things shall be added unto you. Know that 
God is Father, and theology is complete 
Have faith in Him, and his peace shall take 
possession of the heart. 

So far as we may judge from the words 
which have come down to us, the gospel of 
Jesus was complete from the beginning of 
his ministry. With all his enthusiasm there 
is nothing in it of momentary impulse, no- 
thing which is inconsistent. Peasant as he 
was, it is wholly wrong to think of him as 
what we call simple-minded. Both what 
he includes and what he omits are from 
purpose. He was not led on by events to 
his conclusions, for his was a self-con- 
sciousness of the clearest and highest. As 
with his teaching, so with his estimate of 
himself. A Hebrew, he had the Hebrew 
tradition behind him, not the tradition o f 

80 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

men of the twentieth century, and he judged 
himself by standards which are not ours. 
Therefore it was that his teaching was not 
after the modern manner, but with author- 
ity, commanding and rebuking with the 
voice of God. 

For the prophetic consciousness is seized 
by a higher power, inspired, possessed, and 
its utterances are not its own. The Divine 
Spirit compels the man often to a mes- 
sage which he is reluctant to receive, but 
whether he wills to speak or to be silent, 
proclaim it he must. The personality is 
overshadowed so that peasants may rebuke 
kings. Yet they speak not as angels, — as 
messengers, that is, from another sphere, — 
but as a part of that which they depict, and 
as involved in the catastrophes which they 
foretell. They are a spectacle to men, but 
they endure as seeing Him who is invisible. 
Their sole justification is in the event. 

This God-consciousness belonged tojesus 
81 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

in the highest degree. He did not balance 
texts against texts, nor laboriously argue and 
explain; but without hesitation his expres- 
sion was "Amen! I say unto you ! " If any 
sacred word of old contradicted him, he ab- 
rogated it, or contradicted it, or declared 
that it had been given for a temporary pur- 
pose. No book, however sacred, no law, 
though written by the finger of God on 
tables of stones, no temple, though in its 
most holy place Jehovah had his dwelling, 
could command or silence him. The power 
of the Father held him, and the Father was 
revealed in and to him, so that none knew 
the Father — not prophet, nor lawgiver — 
save the Son, and he to whom the Son re- 
vealed Him. 

In this consciousness that God was in 
him, he went far beyond the prophets. He 
was the one of whom they spake. The 
people waited for the Messiah, and Jesus 
declared himself to be he. For we misin- 

82 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

terpret him if we think of him as a man, 
who had reached certain conclusions and 
who set himself the task of persuading 
others. He commands with an imperial 
self-consciousness. It is to men like Alex- 
ander and Caesar and Napoleon that we 
must look would we understand Jesus; for 
his consciousness was that, and more than 
that, even the consciousness of God. He 
could call men to leave and follow him. He 
could declare that he who loved father or 
mother more than him were not worthy of 
him. He could bid the ruler put aside his 
rank and give his wealth to charity. He 
could face the mob and pass unharmed 
through its very midst. Layman and theo- 
logian, priest and chief priest, Herod the 
King and Pontius Pilate embodying the im- 
perial power, were to listen and obey. If 
men did not listen, it was because Satan had 
hardened their hearts; and if they believed, 
it was because the same divine power by 

83 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

which he spake had entered into them. 
His works allowed for no delay. In them 
the destinies of the soul and of the world 
were involved. " Let the dead bury their 
dead," he cried, and " follow thou me!" To 
reject him on any plea was doom, death, 
outer darkness; for his authority was not 
to be doubted or questioned, as it was the 
authority of the Father, Lord of Heaven 
and Earth, and he who spake was the an- 
ointed one, the Christ of God. 

It is only with this comprehension of the 
consciousness of Jesus that we can under- 
stand his work. On every hand it pressed 
him to an alternative. From the beginning 
he saw the opposition which his message 
would call forth, and indeed he did not 
hesitate to call it forth. He did not soften 
or compromise, for he was convinced that 
the men who sat in Moses' seat misguided 
the people to their destruction. His denun- 
ciations were as full of intense emotion as 

8 4 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

were his calls to discipleship. The conflict 
could not be avoided; for though they wor- 
shiped the same God in name, they differed 
at every point. To Jesus it seemed that 
what he loved they hated. To the Pharisee 
God was supersensitive, jealous, punishing 
his people because they were not exact in 
following the ceremony — the etiquette — 
which He had established; an oriental mon- 
arch who ruled rigorously. He was called, 
indeed, the Father of his people, and He en- 
forced social righteousness; but still more 
did He insist upon the ritual, for its neglect 
or profanation was an affront to his majesty, 
while injury to one's neighbor only did 
wrong to man. Jesus came into conflict 
with this conception at every point. He 
violated the pious etiquette of the Pharisees, 
and when they denounced him as possessed 
by Satan he turned upon them as blasphe- 
mers of the Spirit. In this irreconcilable 
conflict the rulers appealed to force. 

85 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

With that in view what should be his pro- 
cedure, and to what labor should he give 
himself? His answer is the most complete 
embodiment of his gospel, both on the posi- 
tive and the negative side. For him whose 
kingdom is of this world certain courses are 
plain. Jesus followed none of them. He 
gave his precious time, a few months at 
most, to healing, to works of mercy, and of 
blessing. Even his teaching could not inter- 
rupt his self-imposed task. The Son of God 
must do the works of the Father while it 
is day, and the works of the Father are not 
military preparation nor councils of war, 
but deeds of love, pity, compassion, and 
healing. Greater than his words was his life 
of saving activity. And on the negative side 
he would not give way to the opposite prin- 
ciple. He would not show a sign from 
heaven to convince men who could not see 
the divinity of acts of pity and love. He 
would not permit his disciples to call down 

86 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

fire from heaven, like the ancient prophet, 
to destroy those who refused to receive him ; 
he would not pray his Father for miracu- 
lous aid in his extremity; he rebuked Peter 
for drawing the sword in his defense. He 
enunciated his principle at the Last Supper. 
" The kings of the Gentiles have lordship 
over them, and they that have authority over 
them are called Benefactors. But ye shall 
not be so; but he that is greater among you, 
let him become as the younger, and he that 
is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether 
is greater, he that sitteth at meat or he that 
serveth? But I am in the midst of you as he 
that serveth." The revelation of his Father 
held him true to the end. Wrath begets 
wrath, and only love begets love. They 
who draw the sword perish by the sword. 
He would permit no exception in his case. 
We are not permitted to think of him as 
enduring the evil which came upon him as 
a stoic, without sign of emotion, and with 

87 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

absolute self-control. Not such an one was 
Jesus, and such do not found religions nor 
make multitudes their devoted followers. 
To be cursed, spoken evil of, mistreated, 
mocked, struck, falsely accused, con- 
demned, followed by a cursing mob to the 
most ignominious of deaths, overwhelmed 
him. The ordinary man might stand all this, 
or suffer it in silence as a martyr, but the 
imperial consciousness of Jesus protested. 
In Gethsemane the reality of the tempta- 
tion which had been with him from the 
beginning pressed him to the ground as he 
besought his Father that the cup might 
pass from him. The cup lacked nothing of 
bitterness, but the story is too familiar for 
repetition. How the Kingdom should be 
established he did not know. His life ended 
in failure, and in the darkness was not a ray 
of light. Only one thing remained, but that 
sufficed, — utter trust in the Father whom 
he loved. All his consciousness of divine 

88 



JESUS THE MESSIAH 

power, all his vision of God's character and 
will, all his own desires, all his hopes for 
humanity, are merged in his prayer, a prayer 
in which religion finds forever its supreme 
expression, " Father! Not my will, but 
thine, be done." 



V 

THE SON OF GOD 

Jesus remains the central figure in the 
religious history and religious interest of 
the world. There is only one answer to the 
question which Professor Harnack asks, 
" Where in the history of mankind can we 
find anything resembling this: that men 
who had eaten and drunken with their 
Master should glorify him not only as the 
Revealer of God, but as the Prince of Life, 
as the Redeemer and Judge of the world, 
as the living power of its existence; and 
that a choir of Jews and Gentiles, Greeks 
and Barbarians, wise and foolish, should 
along with them confess that out of the 
fullness of this one man they have received 
grace for grace ? " And now, after the twen- 
tieth century of the era which calls itself by 

90 



THE SON OF GOD 

his name has dawned, there are everywhere 
multitudes who testify as to a living fact that 
they are saved and brought to God through 
him, while the missionary fire burns more 
strong and clear than in the first century, 
so that his church takes the world for its 
parish. 

The facts are too great for our attempted 
explanations. Doubtless Jesus came when 
all things were ready, in the fullness of the 
time. So does successful power ever coin- 
cide with opportunity. His personality and 
authority drew many to him. They saw 
him full of grace and truth, of a wholly 
divine grace and truth. His presence brought 
God near; his own God-consciousness com- 
municating itself to others. They were lifted 
out of the commonplace into a new experi- 
ence, and became children of the Kingdom. 
All that religion means — the transforma- 
tion of the soul, the revaluation of life, the 
transfiguration of the world — was theirs. 

9 1 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

They had received glad tidings of great 
joy. They could not mourn, for they were 
the children of the bridechamber and the 
bridegroom was with them. " Blessed are 
ye/' cried Jesus again and again; and the 
happiness was the present, conquering fact. 
All things were subject to him, — sea and 
air, and illness, and demons, and distress 
of mind. And him they loved, and in him 
they put their trust. 

That first they should have taken him for 
a prophet, mighty in deed and word, and 
that later they should have believed his testi- 
mony that he was the Messiah, was inevi- 
table. It is true that it was not his miracles 
which convinced them. They were not so 
wonderful as those recorded of Moses and 
Joshua and Elijah, and he refused to show 
the special sign which was expected of the 
Messiah. It was easy to doubt his works 
of healing, for had not the magicians imi- 
tated the wonders of Moses with their en- 

92 



THE SON OF GOD 

chantments, and was it not possible that 
Jesus deceived the people by the help of 
demonic powers ? Even his family thought 
him to be insane. It was only those who 
comprehended his spirit who were believers 
in his mission. The crucifixion dispelled 
their confidence. That a prophet should 
perish was of course to be expected, and 
even after his death his followers could so 
regard him; but only the resurrection re- 
stored their faith that he was Messiah. 

The accounts of the appearances of the 
risen Saviour differ, it is true, in many par- 
ticulars; and Paul, who is our earliest au- 
thority, puts the appearance to himself on 
the road to Damascus in the same category 
with the others. Moreover, he expressly 
refuses to discuss the nature of the resur- 
rection body, reproving the inquiry as " fool- 
ish." The narrative shows at once that 
Christ appeared only to his disciples, and 
that they were convinced that God had 

93 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

made both Lord and Saviour this Jesus who 
had been crucified. This was the first 
creed, — that Jesus, risen from the dead, 
was Messiah and Lord. 

But testimony to any historic fact is a 
slender basis for a world movement, and 
testimony grows more uncertain with each 
passing year. It is not history which con- 
verts men. It is clear from the Gospels, 
the Acts, and most of all from the Epistles 
of Paul, that it was not a belief which 
created the Church, but an immediate ex- 
perience of the power of God. The dis- 
ciples felt themselves seized by the Spirit 
as Jesus had felt himself inspired, and this 
Spirit Paul identifies with the risen Christ. 
It is not now Jesus, after the flesh, who is 
important, but the Christ in Paul and in all 
believers who is the hope of glory. This 
accords perfectly with the convictions of 
the prophets and with their experience. It is 
no longer Paul who lives, but Christ liveth 

94 



THE SON OF GOD 

in him, and the life he still lives in the flesh 
is in the faith of the Son of God, who loved 
him and gave himself for him. The same 
power which re-created Paul created the 
Christian Church. This is at the furthest 
extreme from a rational conviction, based 
on historical evidence, that the tomb was 
empty and that Jesus had risen. Important 
as that fact appeared, it had religious sig- 
nificance only as it brought the conscious- 
ness with it that the same power which 
raised Christ from the dead is in his follow- 
ers. This thought pervades Paul's writings ; 
and he is too conscious of the divine pres- 
ence and power to substitute for it theology 
or history. It is not the testimony of the 
empty tomb which he seeks, but the evi- 
dence of a risen Christ in the lives of his 
converts. 

Such an experience lends itself to the 
excesses and extravagances of ecstatic re- 
ligion. So was it with the early Church. 

95 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

The feeling of God's presence overwhelms 
and intoxicates, and there are prophesyings, 
utterances in unintelligible tongues, visions, 
and trances. It was all but inevitable that 
this consciousness of a divine power within 
should result in a religion which would put 
emotion before ethics and mysteries before 
a sober understanding. From this danger 
Christianity was saved. Paul is true to his 
Lord; for the relation between them is not 
an external one, since that which is deepest 
in him reflects the mind of Christ, and his 
character is like that of his Master, desiring 
the same things and hoping for the same 
great consummation. He extends the mes- 
sage and makes explicit what before was 
only implicit, so that the remaining bonds of 
Judaism are broken and the gospel becomes 
universal in its application. But Paul does 
not change its essential meaning. He has 
a philosophy of history, and expounds the 
Scriptures like a learned scribe, but phi- 

9 6 



THE SON OF GOD 

losophy and exposition are secondary. As 
Jesus describes the judgment of the world 
as based not on creed but on service ren- 
dered to our fellow men, so does Paul in 
inspired poetry set forth the greatest thing 
in the world. It is not mysticism, notwith- 
standing Paul's mystic experiences; nor the 
working of wonders, though Paul worked 
wonders; nor the understanding of myster- 
ies and the possession of knowledge, though 
Paul was an initiate and knew more than 
they all; nor asceticism and the surrender 
of possessions, though Paul had given up 
all; — but it is loving service of our fellows 
which is greater even than faith and hope. 
Like Jesus, again, Paul associates the wor- 
ship of God with this service. He trusts 
God and loves man, the twofold aspect of 
a single consciousness, ethics and religion 
never to be separated. Trust in God, love 
to man, and the Spirit in the heart bring 
forth precisely the same fruits; and this is 

97 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

what is meant by possessing the mind of 
Christ. The impulse which seized Paul and 
transformed him, converting his will, was 
ethical through and through. 

But even Paul's converts could not all 
remain at this height. To many the sense 
of possession of the divine Spirit with the 
attendant ecstasy is the great thing. For 
them religion is precisely this, and it matters 
little how we attain it. Especially was there 
danger that the tie which bound to the his- 
toric Jesus would be broken, and a Greek 
theosophy with countless emanations from 
the infinitely remote God be substituted 
for the ethical monotheism of the prophets 
and the revelation in Christ. John protests 
against this tendency. He employs, it is 
true, the term Logos y he is mystical and 
transcendental; he translates the concrete 
situations with which Jesus dealt into ab- 
stractions ; but he insists that true knowledge 
of God is possible only to those who love 

9 8 



THE SON OF GOD 

their fellow men, and that it is the Christ 
who was seen and heard and handled which 
is the Word of Life. He, too, understands 
the Master, knowing that his disciples are 
not subjects of the earthly kingdom, — else 
would they have fought to protect their king, 
— but of one whose coming is in the heart 
and already manifest. With him the apoca- 
lyptic scenery disappears and salvation is a 
present fact. The disciples already are not 
servants but friends, and the end of their 
salvation is that they may be one with God 
as Christ is one with him. For God is 
not apart, — infinitely removed, — but he is 
known in the human relationships. 

The death and resurrection of Jesus were 
the beginning of problems, not their solu- 
tion. These facts needed explanation, for 
surely of all things the most incredible is 
this, that the Son of God should be executed 
as a malefactor. What could it be but a 
stumbling-block to the Jews and foolish- 

99 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

ness to the Greeks ? Nothing like it is found 
in any other great religion: not in Islam, 
for Mohammed died victorious in old age; 
not in Buddhism, for Gautama finished his 
earthly career aged and honored; not in 
Confucianism, for the Master lived out the 
earthly term of life. It is only Christianity 
which puts in the front the most terrible 
of facts and takes for its symbol a cross. 
Why should the Christ die ? Why should 
he not simply overwhelm his enemies and 
reign, without this mysterious return for a 
time to his Father? The question had to 
be answered, for it belonged to the essence 
of the situation, and could not be escaped. 
Its answer, with the answer to the further 
question as to the nature and origin of Je- 
sus, constituted the first theology. The first 
disciples can say no more than that the 
death was foretold by the prophets, and 
they use Old Testament imagery and rites 
for its exposition. In Paul is the beginning 

ioo 



THE SON OF GOD 

of philosophic explanation, and never yet 
has any fully satisfied the Church, nor after 
all these centuries is there a clearer word 
than Browning's : — 

What lacks then of perfection fit for God, 

But just the instance which this tale affords 

Of love without a limit? So is strength, 

So is intelligence, let love be so, 

Unlimited in self-sacrifice, 

Then is the tale true and God shows complete. 

And yet they cannot remain as final. 
Transferred into a Greek environment, it 
was inevitable that philosophic questions 
should emerge. This development of theo- 
logy is not to be taken as merely transient 
and without meaning. That Greek theology 
has endured to our day, and that the Greek 
solutions still satisfy many, is testimony 
enough to their historic significance. When 
the gospel entered the Greek environment 
metaphysical questions became prominent. 
The answers found were of great and lasting 

IOI 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

importance, for they exhibited Christian 
truth in forms which at once satisfied the 
intellect and conserved central religious 
values. That the creeds formulated in the 
fourth century still maintain their position 
in the Church is sufficient testimony to their 
historic significance. But we do not live in 
the Greek world, and its philosophy is not 
ours. The Greeks had only their own data, 
and logic, and categories of thought. They 
were not prophets, and they could embrace 
all the future neither in science of nature or 
of God. Their insight was their own, and 
the service they rendered is evidence at 
once that Christianity is not a provincialism, 
bound to its native soil, and also that there 
is a possibility of doing for it again what 
they did for it. Our categories are not 
theirs, nor our logic, nor our methods, nor 
our data; and to insist upon the form which 
they gave to the truth as ultimate is to 
attempt to check the progress of man's 

102 



THE SON OF GOD 

mind and to make Christianity possible 
only for men who still dwell in an out- 
grown world of thought. To turn the liv- 
ing power of the Spirit into acceptance of 
dogma, formulated once for all, is to en- 
slave the mind and to put limits to God's 
revelation of Himself. 

The same judgment may be passed upon 
the Roman ecclesiasticism. How Chris- 
tianity should have survived save as en- 
cased in the forms of the state one does 
not know. The freedom of the Spirit, the 
consciousness of the presence of the power 
of God in the soul, as the religious dyna- 
mic, gives place to the power of the com- 
munity. Thus is it in every great move- 
ment which, beginning as a new insight, 
ends by taking its place among the govern- 
ing institutions of society. But our recog- 
nition of the necessity of the imperial form 
does not compel us to take it as permanent. 
As Christianity could conquer the Roman 

103 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

' and imperial world, making its forms serve 
it, so may it conquer the modern demo- 
cratic world, and make its forms serve it. 
Else, once more, must one conceive of the 
Roman imperialism as final, itself inspired 
by God. 

But more than this. The continuity of 
history means neither a monotony which 
merely repeats the past, nor a complete 
break with it so that new forms are substi- 
tuted for the old without progress. But the 
new grows out of the old and improves 
upon it. No great age is isolated. It would 
not be great had it to begin at the begin- 
ning. It is debtor to countless generations. 
Its thoughts, its aspirations, its ideals, are 
by inheritance from the boundless stores 
of humanity, but the new is unworthy of 
the old if it merely repeats it. So it is with 
every religion which aspires to dominion 
over all lands and all times. It does not 
repeat the past though it learns from it, for 

104 



THE SON OF GOD 

it improves upon it. Surely we shall not 
convince the twentieth century that it is 
bound fast to the fourth. 

It is not our purpose to trace even in 
outline the history of doctrine and the his- 
tory of the Church, not even to show how 
the truth of Jesus has never been com- 
pletely lost. Again and again when it has 
seemed to disappear in formalism, in ec- 
clesiasticism, in dogma, or in mysticism, it 
has taken possession of elect souls and 
shone forth. In fact, the real meaning has 
remained especially with the " little ones." 
Men in the multitude have known what 
" Christian" means, and they have been 
quick to recognize the mind of the Lord 
in the disciple. To-day as in the past "the 
common judgment is unerring, and it ap- 
plies the same judgment to the Church as 
Jesus did in his description of the final day 
of his appearing. 

Who, then, in our day has a right to call 

*<>5 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

himself by the name of Christ? Is there 
any room for doubt? What shall we put 
before the judgment of him whose name 
we bear? It is by the claims of conflicting 
sects and by the clamor of the traditions 
of men that we are bewildered. Still as of 
old is faith shown in conduct, not in formal 
creed. It is brought to the test of actuality. 
Nothing, for example, could be more tran- 
scendental than the divine forgiveness of 
sins, something which surely I am simply 
to believe! But not so! If forgiveness be 
divine it works in me, and I have forgiven 
as I trust in God to forgive me. Every 
article of the Christian's creed is alike 
simple, direct, of application to the ordi- 
nary relationships. For God is in man and 
with him, and not unlike him. As we have 
already seen, it is the statement of fact 
which Jesus makes. The law of gravitation, 
limitless as it is and governing the flight of 
stellar systems as it does, has not more tc 

1 06 



THE SON OF GOD 

do with my body than has the law of love 
with my inner life and my relations with 
my fellows. 

The definition of my God is the descrip- 
tion of that which I adore, and the descrip- 
tion of the Christian's God is that of the 
Father of a limitless love. But I cannot at 
once adore it and forsake it. It cannot 
command my soul and leave my conduct 
untouched. Else is it a beautiful dream 
which terminates with awaking ; but faith 
lays hold on that which is, and seeks its 
realization in life and in the world. The 
man who truly adores wisdom seeks it, 
and he who worships the Father of our 
Lord transcends the ordinary kindness 
and charity, and strives to be a son of God, 
a brother of Christ, perfect as the Father 
is perfect. 

What in our modern age forbids this re- 
ligion of Christ? It is only the forms and 
trappings which are outgrown. Never be- 

107 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

*fore was the gospel of Jesus in its sincerity 
so widely recognized and followed; never 
before was there such enthusiasm in the 
service of humanity; never before did so 
many powers combine for the doing of the 
Father's will on earth. The gospel of Jesus, 
beginning with the facts of the common 
humanity, renders the feelings purposeful 
and intelligent, and universalizes them. It 
was a wonderful achievement when the 
ancients conceived of a Church Catholic 
embracing all lands and all ages, ruling not 
by force but by a common belief and senti- 
ment. A still greater vision dawns upon the 
twentieth century, and one more truly Chris- 
tian, — of all lands and all races bound to- 
gether by a recognition of their essential 
brotherhood, their relationship at once to 
each other and to God. In wide circles 
the brotherhood of man and the Father- 
hood of God has become a commonplace. 
To make it fact is the one mission which 

1 08 



THE SON OF GOD 

remains for the Church, and the fact will 
not be commonplace. In ever widening 
groups common interests bind men to- 
gether. Already international rivalry seems 
as irrational as the ancient feuds of neigh- 
borhoods. The unity of commerce and the 
solidarity of labor strive for peace, and the 
brotherhood of invention and of science 
prepares for it. The notion that business is 
war already condemns business methods and 
points to a time, not far distant, when com- 
petition shall give place to cooperation, the 
arts of war to the instruments of peace. 
Steam and electricity are agents in the 
bringing in of that day, for the gospel of 
Jesus has behind it forces other and wider 
than the preaching of its heralds, or the 
organization of the Church. 

Such a' belief in the gospel and its tri- 
umphs does not free the Christian from 
conflict. He is not thrown to the lions, but 
pXhpre are many adversaries. He must fight 

109 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

the good fight as he consciously attempts 
that which God's power will accomplish. 
In this too he returns to the gospel, know- 
ing that the Kingdom is not to come by 
his might, yet eager to have a part in the 
conflict. In the Christian the tendencies 
outlined become fully purposeful. He 
as an individual adopts them as his own, 
and follows unhesitatingly whither they 
lead, though at great cost and without see- 
ing the achievement. He is one with Jesus 
in faith, in hope, in love, in activity. The 
kingdom for which he prays is not yet 
here, and the belief that for it are enlisted 
the forces of the universe, which is God's, 
inspires him with courage. He works out 
his salvation just because he knows that it is 
God who worketh within him to will and to 
do. Still more — this conception stretches 
forward to the world beyond death. It is 
this unity with the purpose of God which 
alone makes immortality credible or de- 

no 



THE SON OF GOD 

sirable. The life to come is not to be proved 
by logic and established by reason. It is 
rendered revolting by the evidence given 
by spirits through mediums. It is a truth 
of faith, known to those who beyond all 
else value most their oneness with Christ 
in God. It is true it is a venture of faith. 
What that future shall be they cannot 
know, but with their Lord they are con- 
fident of the ultimate triumph. Jesus knew 
that his Father was Lord of heaven and 
earth, and that in the end his will shall be 
done. And that is of all things best, for the 
individual and for the world, and the Chris- 
tian finds his trust grow strong in propor- 
tion as he enters into the mind of Christ. 
Jesus is Lord, and faith finds a support in 
his faith, and in his words which reflect his 
clear insight into the purpose of our Father, 
and knowledge of his blessed will. 

Such a conception makes all callings in 
life religious. Other ideals confine religious 

in 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

activity to certain persons or to certain sets 
of acts. If religion be chiefly intellectual, 
an attitude to the whole, or a perception 
of the Infinite, then in its highest power it 
belongs only to the intellectual elite. Or if 
it be predominantly emotional, then again 
whole classes are excluded, for mysticism 
even in its modified forms is inaccessible to 
many. Or if it be a definite experience, as 
of one's utter unworthiness, then only by 
accommodation and a misuse of terms can 
persons of a different attitude be " con- 
verts "; but all alike, in every field, in the 
investigation of truth, in mystic feelings, in 
the plain life of every day, may find them- 
selves one with Christ as they adopt his 
purpose. 

The gospel is not inconsistent with many 
and varied types of religious experience. 
We find no single form even in the New 
Testament. St. Paul, the greatest of Chris- 
tians, was mystic as he was scholar, his 

112 



THE SON OF GOD 

experience covering a wide range, but it 
never obscured or made subordinate the 
essential matter. The gospel of Jesus could 
not be universal did it not make possible 
the evangelical experience, the ecclesias- 
tical, the intellectual, and the mystic, all 
Christian when subordinated to that which 
is greatest. So is it with theology. Many 
persons must ask the ultimate questions 
and seek to bring truth into systematic re- 
lationship. To others still a theology with- 
out metaphysics is a contradiction in terms. 
So is authority, of the Bible or of the Church, 
needed by many minds. These all are 
Christian if they as schoolmasters lead to 
Christ and place above knowledge and ec- 
clesiasticism self-sacrificing love. For the 
purpose of Jesus is not exclusive and iso- 
lating — it is penetrating and vital. There 
is a wide region of religious thought ac- 
tivity, organization, and feeling which are 
important, and all but indispensable. They 

"3 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

are" unchristian only when they usurp the 
first place, substituting something else — 
creed, or system, or emotion, or authority — 
for that by which he judges the world. 

This, too, gives the true place to the 
Church. It has lost many of the ancient 
functions, and it should not seek to recover 
them. It cannot control education, nor di- 
rect the healing of men's bodies, nor wholly 
their forms of worship. It is the company 
of those who, moved by the Spirit of Christ 
and in conscious sympathy with him, sus- 
tain each other in making the world the 
dwelling-place of God. With the concep- 
tion of the Kingdom, the all-embracing 
brotherhood of mankind, there is not only 
opportunity for every form of activity, of 
every variety of life, but an urgent need for 
cooperation. As an association of those thus 
animated by a common purpose, its place is 
clear. It need no longer fear that its future 
will be less than its past. It will know that 

114 



THE SON OF GOD 

its task is the training of the young for such 
activity, and the support of those who feel 
themselves unequal to the task, and the 
carrying on of common ends where wide 
cooperation is required. In each community 
the Church may promote all which is high- 
est, being the organ of the common life for 
common ends, and in the wide world it 
will summon great stores of energy for the 
divine task. Its worship will be for inspira- 
tion, for the setting forth of the common 
ideal, and for the excitation of the emotions 
which are essential to self-denying activity. 
It will no longer oppose science, but it will 
look to it for instruction in the methods by 
which the welfare of mankind is to be pro- 
moted, and will think of truth as from the 
Father of truth, given to his children for 
their good. Wealth will lose its degradation 
when men no longer attempt to worship 
God and Mammon, but make riches the 
instrument of service. 

"5 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

If now we ask what part in this has the 
historic Jesus, and whether, with the in- 
creasing adoption of the principle which 
he enunciated, he will not lose his position 
of supremacy, the answer is plain. How can 
it be that any shall supplant him as Lord 
and Saviour? Never before were more in- 
spired by him. He still calls forth the pro- 
foundest response in multitudes. He is 
still worshiped, trusted, and loved by his 
"friends," and acknowledged as the su- 
preme and unquestioned Son of the Father. 
It is much that in our day his death upon 
the cross casts no shadow upon his divin- 
ity, since men have come to see the clearest 
token of deity in unlimited love, in utter 
self-sacrifice. But again we turn to the 
Church. If it is to put its strongest empha- 
sis on the metaphysics of his person or 
the nature of his birth and the mode of his 
resurrection, and if it insist on a theology 
which was formed in social conditions 

116 



THE SON OF GOD 

which no longer obtain, then indeed he may 
take his place with the heroes and martyrs 
and gods of the past. But if the Church can 
see his great purpose clear, and make chief 
what he made chief, its judgment his judg- 
ment, then will his Spirit still prevail, and 
he shall move men in the time to come as 
in the ages past It is to the test of reality 
that the appeal is made, to the Word still 
made flesh and dwelling among us, the 
present a living unity with the past, his 
Church one with him. 

The religion of Jesus still inspires faith, 
— not only the faith of constant disciple- 
ship, but the faith which saves in extrem- 
ity. He has little experience of life who has 
not met sorrow which is beyond the help 
of man. In the last emergencies of life and 
death, a religion which is to be an anchor 
for the soul must prove its power. And 
the religion of Jesus offers itself to this ulti- 
mate test. It is vain to say to one in such 

117 



THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

case that he is to aid his fellows; the op- 
portunity may be gone forever. There re- 
mains only the casting of one's self upon a 
divine love and mercy. But with such trust 
comes the peace which passeth all under- 
standing, and which the world can never 
take away as it can never give it. In such 
an hour true faith rests upon this revela- 
tion of God, the revelation in all the 
blessed relationships of life, in the godlike 
men whose lives have been inspired by love, 
in the life and death of the Son of God, in 
which we see the truth incarnate. It cannot 
be that the source of all is less than these, 
but rather that all these are named from 
Him who is above every name. Surely this 
faith is not in freedom from the ills which 
belong to mortality, or in miraculous es- 
cape from sufferings, or in a lot which by 
divine interposition shall be happier than 
that of others; but it makes the sons of the 
Father more than conquerors in all things, 

118 



THE SON OF GOD 

in sufferings as in joys, in death as in life, 
and in the trust that even death can be no 
loss for the objects of the Father's love. 
And finally, when every comfort fails and 
life seems to perish in a dark futility, it 
inspires the faith which conquered in Geth- 
semane, its ultimate expression being the 
prayer of the Son of God, " Father! not my 
will, but thine be done." 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



MODERN 

RELIGIOUS 

PROBLEMS 



EDITED BY 

DR. AMBROSE W. VERNON 



For a long time there has been an atmosphere of 
uncertainty in the religious realm. This uncertainty 
has been caused by the widespread knowledge that 
modern scholarship has modified the traditional con- 
ceptions of the Christian religion, and particularly by 
widespread ignorance of the precise modifications to 
which modern scholarship has been led. 

The aim of this series of books is to lay before the 
great body of intelligent people in the English-speak- 
ing world the precise results of this scholarship, so 
that men both within and without the churches may 
be able to understand the conception of the Christian 
religion (and of its Sacred Books) which obtains 
among its leading scholars to-day, and that they may 
intelligently cooperate in the great practical problems 
with which the churches are now confronted. 

While at many a point divergent views are cham- 
pioned, it has become apparent in the last few years 
that it is possible to speak of a consensus of opinion 
among the leading scholars of England and America, 
who have, in general, adopted the modern point of 



The publishers and editor congratulate themselves 
that this consensus of opinion may be presented to 
the public not by middle -men, but by men who from 
their position and attainment are recognized through- 
out the English Protestant world as among those best 
able to speak with authority on the most important 
subjects which face intelligent religious men to-day. 
It is a notable sign of the times that these eminent 
specialists have gladly consented to pause in their de- 
tailed research, in order to acquaint the religious 
public with the results of their study. 

Modern Religious Problems are many, but they 
fall chiefly under one of the four divisions into which 
this series of books is to be divided : — 

I. The Old Testament. 
II. The New Testament. 

III. Fundamental Christian Conceptions. 

IV. Practical Church Problems. 

Under these four main divisions the most vital 
problems will be treated in short, concise, clear vol- 
umes. They will leave technicalities at one side and 
they will be published at a price which will put the 
assured results of religious scholarship within the 
reach of all. 

The volumes already arranged for are the following : 

I. OLD TESTAMENT 

"THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
LAW." By Canon S. R. DRIVER, Oxford University. 

"HOW WE GOT OUR OLD TESTAMENT" 

By Professor WILLIAM R. ARNOLD, Andover Semin- 
ary. 

"THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF ISRAEL." 

By Professor L. B. PATON, Hartford Theological Semin- 
ary. 



II. NEW TESTAMENT 

"THE EARLIEST SOURCES FOR THE LIFE OF 
JESUS." By Professor F. C. BURKITT, Cambridge Uni- 
versity, England. (In Press.) 

"THE MIRACLES OF JESUS." 

By Professor F. C. PORTER, Yale University. 

"THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH." 

By Professor B. W. BACON, Yale University. (Now 
Ready.) 

"HOW WE GOT OUR NEW TESTAMENT." 
By Professor J. H. ROPES, Harvard University. 

"PAUL AND PAULINISM." 

By Rev. JAMES MOFFATT, D. D., Broughty Ferry, 
Forfarshire, Scotland. 

"THE HISTORICAL AND RELIGIOUS VALUE OF 
THE FOURTH GOSPEL." By Professor E. F. SCOTT, 
Queen's University, Kingston. (In Press.) 

III. FUNDAMENTAL CHRISTIAN 
CONCEPTIONS 

"THE GOSPEL OF JESUS." 

By Professor G. W. KNOX, Union Theological Seminary. 
New York. With General Introduction to the Series. (Now 
Ready.) 

"THE GOD OF THE CHRISTIAN." 

By Professor A. C. McGIFFERT, Union Theological Sem- 
inary. 

"SIN AND ITS FORGIVENESS." 

By President WILLIAM DeW. HYDE, Bowdoin College. 
(Now Ready.) 

'THE PERSON OF JESUS." 

By President H. C. KING, Oberlin College. 

"THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES." 

By Professor SHAILER MATHEWS, University of Chi- 
cago. 



IV. PRACTICAL CHURCH PROBLEMS 

"THE PLACE OF THE CHURCH IN MODERN 
SOCIETY." By WM. JEWETT TUCKER, Ex-Presi- 
dent of Dartmouth College. 

"THE CHURCH AND LABOR." 

By CHARLES STELZLE, Superintendent of Department 
of the Church and Labor of the Presbyterian Church of the 
United States. 

"THE ADJUSTMENT OF THE BIBLE SCHOOLS 
TO MODERN NEEDS." By Professor CHARLES F. 
KENT, Yale University. 

"THE CHURCH AND THE CHILD." 

By Rev. HENRY SLOANE COFFIN, Madison Ave. 

Presbyterian Church, New York City. 

The general editor of the series, Rev. Ambrose 
White Vernon, is a graduate of Princeton University 
(1891) and of Union Theological Seminary (1894). 
After two years more of study in Germany, on a fel- 
lowship, he had an experience of eight years in the 
pastorate, at Hiawatha, Kansas, and East Orange, 
New Jersey. From 1904 to 1907 he was professor of 
Biblical literature in Dartmouth College, and then 
professor of practical theology at Yale till the present 
year, when he returned to the pastorate, succeeding 
the late Dr. Reuen Thomas at Harvard Church, 
Brookline, one of the leading churches of metropoli- 
tan Boston. Dartmouth College gave him the de- 
gree of D. D. in 1907. 

The volumes are attractively bound in cloth. Thin 
i2mo y each 30 cents net. Postage J cents. 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
4 Park St., Boston : 85 Fifth Ave., New York 



NOV 8 



1909 



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